Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2

Prologue: Action Proposal 3041

You have all received the document, I trust?

I thought I would orally break down my proposed salvage project to help you all understand where I am coming from.

Yes, I mean you too.

Academy City #3 Railgun – Misaka Mikoto.

Academy City #5 Mental Out – Shokuhou Misaki.

I shouldn’t have to tell any of you that those two do not get along.

But recall the suspension bridge effect.

What would happen if the Ace and the Queen were thrown into some sort of enclosed space in an extreme situation?

Yes, an enclosed space.

Correct, at the most extreme difficulty level.

I just so happen to have prepared such a situation, so why not give it a whirl?

That is my proposal.

That is all I have to say.

…I apologize for focusing so much on the result, but don’t you just want to see the #3 and the #5 flirting?

Depth 8: A Circular Horizon

Part 1

The blazing summer sun shined down from above.

Misaka Mikoto, a student at the prestigious Tokiwadai Middle School, groaned as she sat up to find she didn’t recognize her surroundings. The ground was hard and metallic. The blue sky was as clear as could be, the scent of sea salt hung in the air, and a watery horizon surrounded her in all directions.

“Where am I?” she thoughtlessly muttered.

Taking a seated look around brought no answers and opening her phone’s map app only produced a full-screen error window.

Mikoto hadn’t been the only one lying there. Dozens – no, hundreds – of unconscious girls wore the same summer uniform. She hadn’t actually counted them all, but she guessed that the entire student body was present.

Mikoto couldn’t remember what had happened.

Hadn’t she been in class like normal a moment ago?

(Was I knocked out with some kind of drug? No, it doesn’t seem like it. I think I would remember the moment I passed out if that was it.)

And they appeared to be on a ship. Not just a boat or a yacht. This was bigger. It was probably a massive ship measuring several hundred meters long.

“It looks like a cruise ship,” commented a thoughtful-looking Shirai Kuroko, the twintailed underclassman who had approached at some point. She would hug or nuzzle up against Mikoto given half a chance, so Mikoto used her palm to shove the girl away.

“Fgrhrgh. The ship is named…Izanami? I’ve never heard of one called that.”

“Huh.”

Knowing the names of all the major domestic and foreign cruise ships was a sign of just how rich these girls were.

“Izanami,” repeated Mikoto, still with a somewhat vacant look on her face. “Then this must be a Japanese ship.”

Eventually everyone came to and, without anyone instructing them to, they all began searching around on their own. Or maybe it was just so hot they wanted to get out of the direct sunlight.

(Come to think of it, I’m not sunburned. Does that mean I wasn’t lying out there for very long?)

Mikoto looked out to the horizon, looking puzzled. Her conclusion didn’t seem to fit for other reasons.

Mikoto and the others took a walk around.

Counting the windows from the flat deck showed four or five levels. The odd design of the windows made it hard to be certain. Two bright and shiny buildings towered up on the left and right. The pathway they were walking through now was like a canyon between them. No, it was more like a wide, straight path cutting diagonally across the entire ship. It was a bold spatial design for a cruise ship. It looked something like an open-air arcade in a stylish shopping mall.

However…

“Hm? The cafes, boutiques, and other shops are all empty. There’s no one there. No store clerks and no ship’s crew.”

“Reminds me of the Mary Celeste,” commented Shirai.

Mikoto wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded ominous and she chose not to ask about it.

More importantly…

“As big as this ship is, we are still on the ocean.”

“My. Kongou-sama, why is that a problem?”

“Water and food will be limited. And with nothing but water to the horizon in every direction, we have no idea which way to look for land. Heh. That means we are all adrift together!!”

“My, my. Leave it to you to realize something so important before anyone else!”

Kongou Mitsuko and the swim team members didn’t sound all that concerned, but they were essentially correct. Why noticing their crisis was something to be proud of was a mystery, however.

Adrift.

Stranded.

Could their lives be at risk here?

“We probably don’t want to stay here for long.”

“But, Onee-sama, are you suggesting we operate this large ship ourselves? And we don’t know which direction to go to find land.”

“We don’t need to worry about all that. A ship this size will have a communications room. We only have to send out an SOS and wait for rescue. And if we send out a radio signal on the empty ocean, the rescue team can locate us from that.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

Now, operating a ship and using the radio required licenses, but the Judgment girl didn’t seem to have thought it through that far. Mikoto wanted to get the necessary work done before that righteous lecturer got around to complaining.

But just then…

“Misaka-saaan. A moment of your time.”

For some reason, Shokuhou Misaki, who she normally didn’t get along with, chose that moment to approach her.

Why?

The queen’s ringlets partner was only standing by her side and smiling, so she didn’t seem all that reliable either.

Shokuhou gestured Mikoto over to the interior of the ship, where the air was quite a bit chillier.

And not just due to the air conditioning. The space was as wide open as a shopping mall, but there was no sign of anyone here either. There were no announcements or even music playing. It felt like they had carelessly wandered inside before opening time.

But apparently this wasn’t what Shokuhou had wanted to show Mikoto. Hokaze opened a metal waterproof door that was very clearly meant for staff only and the Queen walked through first. They all descended an exceptionally steep and narrow staircase that felt terribly out of place on a cruise ship.

They ended up in a space that had to be more than 100m across. The bulkheads had been intentionally removed.

Bright lights lined the ceiling like in a gym and shined down on elevators large enough to raise and lower a truck and all sorts of tools Mikoto couldn’t identify.

And it was all meant to work on what covered the floor.

Fighter craft.

Mikoto could see more than 20 of them.

There could be even more elsewhere, of course.

What were those doing here?

Shokuhou had found them earlier and already had an answer.

“It’s some kind of aircraft carrier. A nuclear-powered one.”

“That’s absurd…” reflexively replied Mikoto, but Shokuhou slapped her palm against a large button on the wall.

With a deafening operation siren, one of the walls opened up. The thick fore bulkhead opened, letting in the sea breeze.

Something drew a straight line along the floor.

It was a groove. Or more accurately, the guide rail for an electromagnetic catapult.

“I’ve never heard of one that directly launches the aircraft from the maintenance hangar, but it’s probably meant as a form of camouflage.”

“Did you say camouflage?”

“Remember the arcade up top? That wide, straight-line path cutting diagonally across the entire giant ship? Remove the rain sheet off the top and it would gain some landing runway ability, don’t you think?”

Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami.

That would mean this ship pretending to be a cruise ship was in fact a 300m nuclear-powered ship.

“Does this really matter?”

“Ugh, we really are on different wavelengths… Even Academy City follows the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. So don’t you find it odd the country would build a nuclear-powered military ship and disguise it as a passenger ship? And these are stealth aircraft, but not the usual American F-35s. They all look Japanese to me.”

“I’m more interested in surviving.”

The Queen puffed out her cheeks and repeatedly slapped at Mikoto, but she was so unathletic it didn’t hurt much.

“Sigh, I don’t know why I bothered telling you… And slapping such a flat chest doesn’t provide much sensation ability or fun.”

“Do I need to punch yours to make them really jiggle?”

Anyway, the pressing task for Mikoto and the other girls was not to solve this mystery or conspiracy.

A military ship was guaranteed to have some professional communication equipment. Sending an SOS to land and waiting for rescue was their top priority. Whether this was a cruise ship or an aircraft carrier, even a ship of this size would only have so much water and food, so they would run out eventually.

And there were already some girls pulling out thick manuals and flipping through them.

“Hm, I see. So this uses an electromagnetic catapult system. And when landing, you use this net.”

“You understand all this, Kongou-sama?”

“She is the daughter of an airline company, after all.”

Kongou Mitsuko and Wannai and Awatsuki of the swim team appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Maybe this was just what happened with the elites of Tokiwadai. Even if they had never seen something before, they were fast learners. Instead of limiting themselves to communications, they were poring over every manual they could find. At this rate, they might learn how to operate the laundry, how to tame the nuclear-powered engine, and everything in between.

Even if Mikoto and Shokuhou did nothing, it looked like someone would probably send an SOS from the bridge or CIC before long.

“Onee-sama, where are you going?”

“To check those fighters. The aircraft should have radios too.”

“If the carrier’s radio can’t reach land, there is no way an aircraft radios could. The difference is like comparing a TV station to a taxi radio. You just want to get a look at it, don’t you?”

Part 2

A Japanese stealth fighter.

It sounded like the stuff of dreams and romance, but it did exist.

(Not even counting the bizarre Academy City ones.)

The experimental technology demonstrator had been built from only domestic parts to learn the technology, not to actually take part in air combat.

“The Shinshin, huh?”

Mikoto hadn’t been interested at first, but the desire grew inside her as she thought about having to say goodbye once rescue arrived. She was outside the wall and this was a Japanese stealth fighter. She wanted to touch it while she had the chance.

“Was it only ever a life-size model, or did they actually make one? Whatever the case, I never heard anything about it being mass-produced,” said Shokuhou Misaki, her lips pouting.

Mikoto was surprised to find her still in the hangar. She had assumed the girl would be on the bridge or CIC so she could boss people around.

The craft had an elegant streamlined shape and a somehow pointed look.

But it wasn’t like a katana.

She sensed none of the heat of steel that had been forged by a human hand.

This was pure icy beauty. And nothing more. Each and every tiny part might as well have been stamped with a “computer-optimized design” message, like the sutra written all over Hoichi the Earless.

Mikoto usually thought of stealth aircraft as black, but the Shinshin was mostly pure white. It also had bright red and blue lines. Although that may have been because it was only experimental.

(Were the 3D model and small flight test models colored this way too?)

“But wait. It’s bigger than I expected.”

“Probably because it’s a 2-seat custom,” said Shokuhou.

Sure enough, it had two seats, one behind the other.

The actual specs weren’t public, but the idea had been to more or less match the F-22A.

Stealth technology wasn’t a divine miracle, so it wouldn’t remain exclusive to America forever.

In fact, while gathering the technology and developing one was all well and good, Mikoto wondered how Japan’s defense budget could afford so many of the super-high-tech stealth fighters that had been too much for even the military superpower of America to produce in great quantities. Real life wasn’t a robot anime and a single ultimate craft wasn’t enough.

(So who paid for all of these and from what budget?)

Mikoto pushed over a simple gangway that resembled a pool lifeguard tower and took a look inside the cockpit.

She opened the clear canopy.

And she climbed in.

“Ugh… Surprisingly cramped.”

“It’s military. What were you expecting?”

There were no gaps, making her feel like she was the foot slipped inside a high-heeled shoe.

“If it’s designed for long flights, I thought it would be more, y’know, comfortable, like with a memory foam back.”

“Soft cushions would be squashed flat by the ultra-high-g environment, so they wouldn’t be very useful.”

Mikoto tested a few buttons in the cockpit until she heard some static.

Maybe it was thanks to the thick bulkhead open to the outside, but the craft’s radio had picked up the carrier’s communication signal.

“Um, SOS, SOS, mayday! This is the Izanami. We do not know our situation, but we are adrift. If anyone is near enough to hear this, we ask that you follow this signal to rescue us.”

“Well, that’s done.”

“Come to think of it, can we really just wait for someone’s rescue ability? Since we’re in the ocean, we definitely aren’t in Academy City, so I hope there isn’t any trouble with another country related to the esper development and our DNA maps.”

Mikoto felt they could wait until they had escaped their current predicament before worrying about that. Arriving ashore alive was their top priority for now.

And it turned out Mikoto wasn’t the only one relaxing.

More voices arrived over the radio. Since their phones couldn’t communicate with the land-based servers while out on the empty ocean, even the basic call and email functions weren’t available, so everyone had started carrying around handheld radios.

“Huh? We’re in the ocean, but there’s a pool.”

“We really are the only ones here. We won’t even have to wait in line.”

“They have karaoke. I-is that one of the legendary bowling alleys I’ve heard so much about!? Since we’re here, we might as well check it out!”

Mikoto stared into the distance.

…She felt awfully silly pretending to be a foot in a high-heeled shoe inside a hangar that reeked of machine oil. The cruise ship camouflage appeared to have been a thorough job, so enjoying the resort would be a much better way to spend the short time until rescue arrived.

And while this realization was sinking in…

An earsplitting electronic tone exploded from the speakers throughout the ship.

“What!?” shouted Mikoto as she poked at the cockpit’s communication controls. “Is that an alarm!?”

“I-it’s a false alarm. Nothing more,” someone replied on the radio. “The ship’s early-warning radar appears to have picked something up… It’s flying straight this way from the northwest, but it’s probably whoever’s coming to rescue us.”

Mikoto saw motion on one of the small monitors in the cockpit. It appeared to have a datalink to the carrier’s early-warning radar.

There was indeed a large dot there.

And it was moving fast.

“That must be our rescue. Now we can finally get back home.”

The voice on the radio (probably from the bridge) sounded unconcerned.

At some point, Shokuhou had shoved her head right up next to Mikoto’s.

“Excuse me, Misaka-saaan.”

“Whoa, what do you want!?”

She was standing on the simple gangway that resembled a tennis umpire chair so she could lean into to cockpit and see the display. That brought her face extremely close. Her long blonde hair tickled against Mikoto’s cheek.

Shokuhou was still staring at the display.

“Mach 1.25. That doesn’t sound like a large helicopter to me. Not a tiltrotor either. My guess is a large aircraft equipped with two or even four engines.”

“So what?”

“A 40m aircraft has no midair stopping ability. It also can’t land on a carrier runway. …The quick arrival is appreciated, but how do they plan on rescuing us?”

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance at extreme close range.

The alert siren increased in volume and the ship’s lighting all switched to red.

“Oh, no!” shouted the voice from the bridge. “How do I switch off this false alarm!?”

“Is it…not false? Bridge!! Send all the data you have to me!!”

That request came too late.

With a rumble, the 300m nuclear-powered aircraft carrier shook vertically. Including the cruise ship camouflage, the hunk of steel had to weigh more than 100 thousand tons.

“Eh? Eh?” said the voice on the bridge.

“They shot something at us?”

“It didn’t hit us,” said Shokuhou. “See that big pillar of water in the ocean outside the open bulkhead?”

What would have happened if that had hit?

The fighter’s small display made it hard to tell, but a few centimeters there had to mean an actual distance of more than 100km.

At that kind of distance, a small speck separated from the larger dot.

No, it had been launched.

That was the second shot.

The size, speed, and trajectory of the rapidly-approaching weapon must have triggered an automatic prediction from the carrier’s database. English text appeared on the radar screen.

Estimated Model: ASM Harpoon.

“That’s an anti-ship missile…”

The identification was made through computer estimation.

Mikoto paled.

“That Harpoon was designed to destroy ships like this! I don’t know who this is, but is that a bomber coming for us? All we did was send out an SOS over radio, but did they follow the radio signal to sink the entire damn ship!? Without even a word of warning!?”

“It still might be a false alarm,” suggested Shokuhou.

“You saw that earlier explosion! And the second shot is flying this way!!”

“The Harpoon was launched from the air, so we aren’t dealing with pirates or terrorists! That has to be a national military. Why would they open fire without even checking to see who they’re firing on!?”

An explosive noise continued on and on, sounding something like a much deeper version of buzzing wings.

The close-in defense Gatling guns installed across the Izanami (and disguised to look like parts of the cruise ship) must have opened fire. They were of course under automatic control, so the girls didn’t even have to touch the console.

Eventually, they heard an especially loud explosion.

A distant one.

The Harpoon must have been shot down near the water, but…

“You understand that we only got lucky there, don’t you?” said Shokuhou. “We can’t count on that happening again.”

“…”

“With their second shot failed, they’ll just launch a third. They’ll keep going until they blast through the ship’s hull!! They will eventually break through our close-in defenses which can maybe shoot down one missile after firing tens of thousands of rounds. Do you want to be strewn across the sea along with the nuclear-powered engine that will be leaking who-knows-what into the water after the hull breaks open? We need to cut off the threat at the source!!”

What was Misaka Mikoto currently seated inside?

It wasn’t a movie theater seat, that was for sure. She had a chance to alter the situation playing out before her eyes.

Shokuhou pouted her lips.

“Misaka-san, all you’ve done is read through the thick manual. What makes you so sure you can actually pilot this thing?”

She didn’t need to say a word.

With a buzz, all of the systems in the Shinshin’s cockpit came to life.

Misaka Mikoto was a Level 5 with power over electricity. That gave her more than just destructive power – she could use her power to hack in and tame programs or to perform cyber attacks. She could control the flaps and thrust vectoring nozzles as easily as opening and closing her hands.

“Too easy.”

Despite what the old RCS models suggested, it seemed the latest fighters didn’t use a HUD that placed the display over the actual view. In order to transform her entire field of view into a weapon, Mikoto put on a pair of ultra-thin goggles that were even more delicate than sports sunglasses.

“Ugh, really. If you’d screwed up the startup process, I would have had an excuse ability to stop you.”

Shokuhou held a hand to her forehead atop the simple gangway and snapped her fingers with the other hand.

Immediately, Mikoto’s body jerked to the side.

No, that wasn’t what happened.

She couldn’t see straight down from the cockpit thanks to the pointy nose, but Hokaze Junko, who was always at Shokuhou’s side, had grabbed the fighter’s front landing gear and started pulling. With Rampage Dress, not even the 20-ton Shinshin could stop her.

“Whoa, hey, H-Hokaze-san!?”

“This is faster than hooking it up to a tractor and guiding it that way,” said Shokuhou. “Now, the electromagnetic catapult guide rail is over here, so attach the wire over here.”

“Queen.”

“The catapult switch is on that box hanging over there, isn’t it? Okay, Misaka-san, close the canopy and fasten your seat belts. Oh, and make sure to clench your teeth so you don’t bite your tongue. You will be accelerating past 250km/h in less than 5 seconds, so you could injure your neck if you aren’t careful☆”

“Are you sure you want to stand on that guide rail, Queen? That is well within the contact danger zone.”

It turned out she didn’t actually want to do that at all, so the blonde girl scrambled away as the Shinshin shot forward with a loud metallic scraping sound.

It was a lot like taking off from within a tunnel.

The Japanese stealth fighter shot from the bulkhead gaping wide at the bow of the camouflaged aircraft carrier.

Part 3

It was a lot like a roller coaster.

As soon as it was released from the guide rail at more than 250km/h, the fuselage shook. It was thrown out into empty air without even the bare minimum of safety assurance. The blue ocean raced by just 7m below.

If it contacted those rolling waves, it would be torn to pieces.

(Whoa!?)

Mikoto quickly adjusted her grip on the control column.

But while it wobbled at first, everything was fine after she lifted the nose just a bit and began a slow climb. The shaking settled down after the landing gear was stored away. The ground effect and extra air resistance must have been the problem.

“That was scary… But huh. So this is the mysterious Japanese stealth fighter? It isn’t hard to control at all.”

“Misaka-saaan.”

A voice arrived on the radio.

The solid footsteps joining the voice suggested the girl was walking with a small radio in hand.

“Oops. We didn’t decide on a call sign, so I used your real name over the air.”

“You can’t convince me that wasn’t intentional, Shokuhou.”

“What was that – payback? Anyway, the enemy is about 100km northwest. I’m on my way to the CIC, but with the Shinshin’s top speed, you might be done before I even settle down in the command chair. …Wait, um, Misaka-saaan? Wait!!”

“The enemy’s to the northwest! Then I’ll just make a quick turn in that direc–––––!?”

Mikoto’s vision whited out.

Everything sounded like it was coming from a great distance.

She couldn’t seem to remember where she was or what she was doing. Like some gear in her head had slipped out of place…?

(H…………u…………h…………?)

She had a feeling not doing anything would be very bad, but she couldn’t seem to conjure up any idea of why that was.

“…ne……………sa………”

She heard something from somewhere.

While just barely clinging to consciousness, she focused her mind in that direction.

It immediately transformed into a voice.

“Onee-sama!! You need to grab onto the control column immediately! Do you want to stall out and die!?”

“Oh, whoa!?”

Oh, right. She was piloting a fighter craft!

It probably hadn’t taken even 5 seconds. But in a supersonic fighter, that was enough for her surroundings to entirely change. She took a hurried look around and checked her coordinates on the small monitor.

Thoughtlessly swinging the craft around had pulled the blood down from her brain and nearly knocked her out. Yes, Misaka Mikoto was wearing her usual summer uniform. She had left in a hurry, so she wasn’t wearing a thick anti-g suit!

(Oxygen. Where’s the mask? Is this it? Urp, it’s gotta be this small tube hanging from my ear like a hands-free mic!!)

“I-I was wrong. This isn’t easy… What genius built a machine with no care for how the human body works?”

And that wasn’t the only source of surprise.

Something was flying alongside her.

The single-engine fighter was smaller than the Shinshin. It looked a bit like an F-16, but the details were a little different. Was that a Japanese-made F-2A?

And that was her underclassman seated in the cockpit.

“K-Kuroko? Why are you up here too!?”

“I am here as well!”

“Whoa!?” shouted Mikoto.

Another F-2A flew on her other side. Piloted by Hokaze Junko. They were only a few meters apart, making this look like some kind of acrobatic flying. Their IFF signals had them tagged as friendly, but Mikoto still should have been paying more attention to her radar.

As the oxygen made its way into her brain, Mikoto’s mind and vision gradually cleared.

“That was a very good decision for short notice, Shirai-sama. When Misaka-sama wasn’t responding to your hails, I never would have thought to detonate an air-to-air missile just outside of the lethal range☆”

“Kuroko.”

“You would have had a one-way trip to hell if you hadn’t woken up.”

Mikoto hadn’t been following all the details since she had passed out for a bit, but why had Shirai and Hokaze taken off as well? They couldn’t tame the machine with their powers in the same way Mikoto could.

“It is admittedly risky, but, well, I was too worried letting you do it on your own, Onee-sama.”

“…Oh.”

“Yes, I was worried you would get so carried away you skipped straight past threats and warnings and went for the kill right away.”

“Oh, I see how it is! Anyway, Kuroko, why are you wearing that formfitting suit? It’s pink! That’s not any anti-g suit I’m familiar with!”

“You would be surprised if you saw what the carrier is equipped with.”

“And, Misaka-sama, I do not want a lecture on common sense from someone who took off in a fighter wearing her school uniform. I’m not even sure boosting my muscles with Rampage Dress would be enough to avoid blacking out.”

It sounded like both of the others were wearing full-body tights that showed off all of their curves. Had the threat to their lives overpowered their teenage shame?

Meanwhile, something passed them by from up ahead.

It was 1000m below them.

It was skimming just off the ocean surface, yet something like a skinny contrail stretched sharply behind it.

That was a missile’s rocket smoke.

“M-Misaka-sama!? Something just flew rapidly by us…they must have launched another anti-ship missile toward the carrier!”

“Don’t, Hokaze-san. You can’t catch up to the Harpoon by making a U-turn now. Shokuhou and the others on the carrier will have to shoot it down!”

“Ughh, Misaka-san, you’re asking the impossible…”

“Shut up, Shokuhou. If you screw it up, you’ll sink along with the wreckage of the carrier, so do it like your life depends on it. …We’ll be shutting off the source, so this third missile will be the last!!”

Now wasn’t the time to be chatting.

In the supersonic world, you covered more than 330m every single second. How far would they travel in the time it took to have a conversation lasting just a few minutes? Time wasn’t money – it was life.

“20 kilometers to the target,” said Shokuhou. “If the air is clear, you should be entering visual range. It’s almost time!”

“Kh.”

“First, give a warning. Next, get a radar lock. If that doesn’t work, use some warning fire with your machine gun to obstruct their course. Don’t shoot their engine or main wings right away. And no trying to look cool by blowing them to smithereens with a missile. I know how you think, Misaka-saaan!!”

“Why does everyone see me that way?”

Mikoto sighed while looking between the dot on her radar and the actual blue sky.

An object was approaching from 20km ahead.

This was a scale not normally experienced living in a city.

But.

What was that?

…It only looked like a sesame seed at this distance, but was it a transport ship? A bomber? No, neither of those fit what she was seeing. It was shaped more like…huh???

Something shot right past her.

Very close by.

A moment later, her craft shook violently up and down. She hadn’t been attacked. That was only a sonic boom, the shockwave created when breaking the sound barrier.

Meaning…

“Something just passed us? Is there someone else out there!?”

“Wait. Nothing is showing up on ra-”

“It’s stealth. We should break formation and scatter before it can make a U-turn and get on our tails, Onee-sama!!”

Shokuhou seemed upset that Shirai had interrupted her.

The situation had changed.

The large bomber or something was launching long-range anti-ship missiles from a distance, but it had an escort.

Whatever the case, they couldn’t just ignore the craft that had passed them. If the unidentified stealth craft made a U-turn, it could get on their unguarded tails. Then it could fire on them with air-to-air missiles, a machine gun, or whatever else. Unlike a race at a school athletic festival, whoever was behind had the advantage in a dogfight.

Mikoto’s Shinshin and Shirai and Hokaze’s F-2As had been bunched together in formation, but now they each turned at different angles. They each took a fishook-like course. Together, they looked like a giant blossoming flower.

Mikoto knew she wasn’t supposed to push herself too hard, but she still felt a great squeezing at her lungs. A dull pain throbbed in her head and darkness crept in from the sides of her vision. She smelled blood in the back of her nose.

(I really should’ve changed before taking off.)

The unidentified craft appeared to have chosen to pursue Shirai, but that meant ignoring the other two. Mikoto’s Shinshin twirled around and then turned further to get behind the unidentified craft pursuing Shirai.

Shirai would die if an air-to-air missile was fired on her.

“We’re past the point of warnings and thre-!! …???”

Mikoto started to shout on reflex, but she suddenly stopped.

She couldn’t believe her eyes.

For a moment, she thought she was hallucinating due to lack of blood and oxygen to her brain, but apparently not.

She was really seeing that in this supersonic world.

The unidentified craft pursuing her underclassman Shirai Kuroko’s F-2A was…

A butt.

A girl’s butt was flying there.

“Wha- bu- huh? Am I being influenced by a secret weapon that directly influences my mind with EM waves or low frequency sound?”

“Do not worry, Misaka-sama. That looks like a flying butt to me as well.”

“Don’t say that in such a matter-of-fact way!! What the hell is that!?”

In plain terms, this is what she saw.

There was more than just a butt. The whole body was there. Mikoto was chasing after a mystery girl who was flying in a prone position. The girl looked to be 14 or 15. Her hair was done up in long rolled twintails.

She wore a formfitting suit which resembled a long-sleeved black leotard.

Aerodynamic metal weaponry was attached to her from the top.

Specifically, a sturdy metal joint was attached from her back to the rear of her hips. Different blocks – the nose, the main wings, the engine, etc. – were attached to that.

It almost looked like she was wearing a weaponized backpack, but that probably wasn’t what this was. It had no shoulder straps. The hip joint was directly connected to her at three points: the pelvis and the shoulder blades. It also looked like her arms past the wrists and her legs up to the base of the thighs were actually machines capable of smooth movement.

Flat metal circled around from the bottom of the wings to her stomach, but rather than armor, that was probably the weapons bay used to store missiles.

Most likely, she communicated using signals coming from her tailbone or something. Whether those were neurotransmitter signals or binary 0s and 1s, who could say.

However.

“Sh-she’s huge!?”

Mikoto was not making a rude comment about a girl she had only just meant.

The girl really was huge.

With nothing for comparison, it was easy to lose one’s sense of scale with the blue sky acting like a green screen, but the flying girl wasn’t all that different in size from Shirai’s fighter.

That meant the mystery supersonic butt girl had to be between 15 and 20 meters tall!?

“Now that’s surreal. And that fleeing butt is wiggling side to side to escape my radar lock. But she’s still pursuing Kuroko, so if she weren’t a butt, this would be a serious threat to our lives.”

“You’re not making any sense, Onee-sama!? I have several alarms sounding in here!!”

The radar LCD displayed a dot and some text. The position was shifting a lot, but even if EM-based radar wasn’t working, Mikoto was close enough for her fighter to display a prediction based on visual and thermo data. The mechanically-acquired data must have been used in conjunction with the carrier’s server data.

Mikoto’s phone-based habits led her to tap the dot to display more information.

IFF: Enemy

Estimated Model: F-22A

What the hell?

That was the computer-estimated identity?

Mikoto was finally rendered speechless. But apparently the visual, the engine exhaust heat, the air current disturbance, the radar absorption rate, and all the other data had been analyzed by the carrier’s computer to make this prediction.

It was a dark craft.

It’s stealth allowed it to slip past not just a fighter but an aircraft carrier’s early-warning radar.

It was designed to store all of its weaponry on the inside to preserve its stealth capabilities.

It used its thrust vectoring nozzles to supply the speed and mobility needed to easily stay on the tail of a fleeing F-2A.

It was a stable and powerful craft.

This checked all the boxes.

If not for the ridiculous image of a giant butt in a long-sleeved black leotard, then this was indeed an F-22A!!

“Th-this is ridiculous. How can a butt that round still have high level stealth capability!?”

“Come to think of it, Misaka-sama, we all woke up on the carrier, but we don’t actually know where we are. That is, we know we were on the carrier, but we don’t know where the carrier is.”

(It’s not just the F-22A. I wasn’t imagining it when I saw the bomber.)

“…”

(I don’t know if that was supposed to be a B-1B or a Tu-160, but that was definitely a 40m blonde woman wearing a tank top and bike shorts!!)

“Does that mean we’re in another world that’s just like this?” asked Shirai.

Part 4

Was that the case?

Was this another world?

A completely different world where fighters and bombers were shaped like girls who flew through the sky!?

Part 5

But whether the enemy was a fighter or a long-sleeved leotard butt, they were flying through the sky, had a radar lock, and could launch an air-to-air missile. That was an F-22A regardless. More than 60 seconds had passed since she got on Shirai’s tail. Even in a dogfight, there was only so long you could escape the wobbling seeker.

Once the two marks aligned and the lock was complete, the missile would be launched.

Mikoto had to act before that happened.

“Kuroko!!”

“No time for a count to three. Now!!”

Shirai released all her flares to confuse the F-22A just long enough for Mikoto fly in from behind and spray it with machinegun fire.

She didn’t wait for a complete lock.

At this range, Shirai’s flares could easily confuse it anyway.

Instead of launching a guided missile that would pursue the dozens of heat sources provided by the firework-like flares, the enemy girl(?) prioritized her own safety and took a sharp turn. She readily abandoned the position that would give her an advantage in locking on.

(As ridiculous as she looks, she’s really cautious!)

Mikoto quickly moved to pursue.

But all of a sudden, the F-22A vanished from view.

She now only saw the lock seeker wandering uncertainly near the center of her view.

The F-22A had twisted herself into a clockwise roll and then pitched her nose upwards. The craft coiled around while advancing forward.

When Mikoto realized what it had done, a chill ran down her spine.

Aircraft used air resistance to brake. One method was to swing the craft around wide to increase the surface area that caught the wind.

And distance was another important factor.

Which was longer: a 10cm wire stretched out straight or a wire coiled around a 10cm pen? The answer was obvious.

A quick movement could move a craft outside its enemy’s view, break a radar lock, and also rapidly brake to make the enemy overshoot it.

“A barrel roll!?” shouted Mikoto just as an alarm sounded inside her cockpit.

The F-22A was already directly behind the Shinshin.

(Damn, I could see her if I looked back, but I can’t fire a Railgun like this!!)

Overlooking the enemy’s rapid deceleration gave them a chance to turn the tables.

The F-22A and the Shinshin had been developed at around the same time. The Japanese stealth fighter had been developed as a rival to the American stealth fighter.

So there was little difference in their specs.

(Was this a skill issue on my part?)

A missile was launched from directly behind.

Mikoto couldn’t escape.

If she forcibly swung the craft around, she would only knock herself out from lack of blood to the brain.

So only one option remained.

She switched off the jet engines.

In midair.

Mid-flight.

Intentionally.

That was suicide, but the air-to-air missile sharply approaching from behind flew right past her.

The F-22A had shown concern over Shirai’s flares. That meant her missiles used an infrared guidance system that detected and pursued engine exhaust heat.

“So if I eliminate that heat source, it won’t hit me!!”

Mikoto wasn’t going to let this happen twice.

She yanked the nose up.

Even while flying freely in the supersonic world, basic gravity did not just go away. An aircraft used more energy climbing than descending. Which meant it would decelerate when directed upwards.

What happened if you forced that action while the engines were switched off?

!?

She could have sworn she heard a gasp.

Something shot rapidly below the Shinshin. It was the F-22A that had been pursuing Mikoto’s craft from behind. Just like she had done to Mikoto before, Mikoto had tricked her into overshooting.

Mikoto reignited her engines.

Instead of operating the many switches and buttons, she directly manipulated electricity to control each wire separately. This was a forcible technique that only she could pull off. If she had attempted it with the usual manual controls, the engines might not have responded and she could have plummeted to the ocean below.

The wind and shockwave of the overshooting enemy rattled her craft, but Mikoto wasn’t about to let her quarry escape.

The F-22A and the lock seeker aligned.

Mikoto adjusted her grip on on the control column.

She only had to press the button below her thumb to launch an air-to-air missile.

But…

“…”

Was there any meaning behind her hesitation?

Mikoto used her index finger to pull the trigger on the control column to instead release a line of machinegun fire.

She avoided the giant girl’s bare skin and instead tried to chew through the thin armor on her right leg…which was probably part of the tail assembly.

There was no explosion.

Nor any red blood.

The F-22A’s flight destabilized, she couldn’t recover from her tailspin, and she began a gentle descent toward the blue sea below.

The girl had lost her wings.

At this speed and altitude, maybe it didn’t really matter either way.

“One down by machinegun.”

“The larger reading – probably a B-1B? – has turned,” said Shokuhou. “It appears to be leaving the area to the northwest. It probably felt exposed without its escort.”

“Onee-sama, should we go after it?”

“…No. Not if the ship is safe. We don’t want to pursue too far and end up without enough fuel to get back.”

Mikoto breathed a heavy sigh.

She felt an ache deep in her chest.

Was it her lungs or her heart that felt on the verge of tears?

Never again would she recklessly take to the skies in her summer uniform. Was the clear plastic canopy made with lead mixed in? She hoped desperately that it blocked the radiation and UV found at high altitude.

“Anyway, Shokuhou, can you send out a helicopter from the carrier? Or move the entire ship, if you would prefer.”

“Why?”

“Did it not show up on the radar? The display based on our shared datalink may have only shown a small dot with an ‘F-22A’ label, but you are not going to believe your eyes when you see this in person.”

Depth 7: The Two Stealth Fighters

Part 1

Winning the battle wasn’t the end of it.

They were at an altitude of 800m.

They were flying at a speed of less than 300km/h.

That meant they had decelerated nearly to the limit for an aircraft, but they were still moving far faster than a car on the highway.

Which meant they couldn’t afford even the slightest mistake.

Since they were flying, they would have to perform a landing. A deck landing in this case. Mikoto, Shirai, and Hokaze could not let their focus slip until they had landed on Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami.

No matter how ridiculous it seemed, they were risking their lives. Even without an enemy and without any air-to-air missiles, screwing up the deck landing would mean death.

“By the way, Kuroko, that was smart choosing Hokaze-san as the other pilot. She makes great insurance.”

“Eh? That is not why I chose her, Onee-sama. I merely thought her superior strength would make her less likely to blackout. I would never entertain such thoughts.”

“?”

If it was only Mikoto up there, the wicked queen could lie and give false instructions that indirectly caused her to crash, but she couldn’t tell that to the ringlets girl tilting her head in confusion.

“Kobayashi here. I am here in the CIC working control with the Queen. We are ready for your landing, so we will display instructions on your screens. Match your speed, angle, and altitude to the instructions you receive. Misaka-sama, you can go first since you are the most fatigued.”

“I can’t believe you would take a stroll in the supersonic world wearing your uniform instead of an anti-g suit, Misaka-san. That goes beyond being a musclebound gorilla. Academy City really has created a dreadful monster. I don’t think the #3 even qualifies as a mammal. You seem more like a dinosaur to me.”

“God, I want to shoot a missile at the carrier.”

She would have done so if she had any anti-ship weapons, but unfortunately she did not.

“Also…”

“I know, Misaka-sama. That carrier seemed like a labyrinth, but it looks like a speck from up here.”

Hokaze was right.

The blue sky and the sea were like planes of death created by a lazy god and that one artificial object sat in the space between. If they fell anywhere other than that tiny speck, they would die.

It was now time to descend toward that speck. To be blunt, its size made the idea terrifying.

Where was the landing runway on that speck?

Was it that?

The arcade running diagonally through the cruise ship? The rain sheet that had acted as a roof had been removed to open it up, but camouflage structures the size of 4-or-5-story buildings towered up on either side.

…Would this be like squeezing a fighter into the gap between buildings at school? And Mikoto’s craft was about 20m long.

(The standard single-seat Shinshin was less than 15m long. Why did they feel the need to make this bigger two-seat custom?)

This was going to be a tight fit.

As sturdy as the fighter felt, a crosswind could still push it and the carrier itself would be endlessly rising and falling thanks to the waves.

“Yikes! That’s like landing in a narrow valley between two giant mountains!!”

“Um, uh… Onee-sama, I don’t think someone of your meager size needs to worry about any valleys between big mountains…”

“Kuroko, shut up or I will shoot you down.”

After Mikoto’s threat, Shokuhou’s exasperated voice came in over the radio.

“Izanami to the flat pair. Your landing will be guided by microwave and laser, so there’s no problem. If you follow the instructions on your display, you will be navigated with a margin of error of less than 30cm. The ILS is apparently precise enough for you to land inside a tunnel. …Listen, Misaka-san. That means you have no reason ability to doubt what I’m telling you.”

(This is going to be tricky. It’ll be even harder than piloting an unfamiliar fighter without any practice.)

“I don’t need Mental Out to read your mind, Misaka-san. Doubt me if you want, but if you are going crash, do it in the water. I don’t want to have to run around putting out burning metal wreckage on the crucial deck. Especially not out in that blazing sun☆”

In the end, this was a group activity.

There wasn’t much Mikoto could do on her own.

Despite her doubts, she had no choice but to follow the instructions.

(I’m so glad we have Hokaze-san with us. Not as a fighter, but as a valuable hostage.)

“Anyway.”

This was another world.

A world that looked a lot like Earth but was entirely different. Especially with how the fighters and bombers were scantily-clad girls flying through the sky.

Mikoto had a headache. Did this mean they were faced with the usual question?

“How are we supposed to get back to our world?”

Part 2

Mikoto and the other two were risking their lives descending from the sky, but it was a nerve-wracking experience for those on the carrier as well.

A landing runway ran diagonally across Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami.

“Okay, okay! Make sure the landing wire is taut!! Is the overrun net ready? Misaka-sama will be arriving soon!! Move the tractor to the side – we won’t need you for a while yet!!”

The shouted instructions were coming from Kongou Mitsuko.

Having the heiress to Kongou Airlines was a huge help here. It was unclear how many actual skills the daughter of the airline’s president had, but the title still put people at ease.

Regardless, the fighters were coming in to land on the carrier.

That was very different from landing on an ordinary airport runway. They had less than a tenth of the distance to work with. So a hook hanging from the bottom of the fighter would catch on a taut wire stretched horizontally across the carrier to forcibly stop it.

The fighter was a 20-ton mass moving at more than 250km/h. That was worse than the giant semi-trailer trucks seen in action movies. It went without saying what would happen to anyone it happened to come in contact with.

So next to the runway, Wannai Kinuho of the swim team had formed a large ball of water.

“Leave it to me. If anything goes wrong, I can stop the landing fighter with this☆”

They needed to be making full use of their Academy City esper powers. They were only middle schoolers. Without cheating like that, they couldn’t hope to operate a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

“Huh?”

Awatsuki looked back and tilted her head.

“But this is a mall arcade. Is it really safe to have those shop banners, café tables, and more out here? I thought even the smallest object had to be cleared from a runway.”

“Kobayashi from control here. We are guiding Misaka-sama in. We will be making the final safety check, so all deck personnel should get ready.”

“?”

There wasn’t time to question it.

With a blast of compressed air from the deck, all the café chairs and tables on the long, long arcade were blown to either side of the landing runway.

“Kyah!?”

Also, Kongou and the others were forced to quickly hold down their short skirts.

Was that what they were meant to get ready for?

“H-how could an Aero Hand like me fall victim to some m-mischievous wind?”

A calm transmission reached the blushing and tearful girls.

“Final safety check confirms all extraneous objects have been removed from the runway. Misaka-sama is coming, so get ready.”

…Ordinarily, a large team would have removed every last fallen screw and bolt from the deck first, leaving the compressed air as only a final safety measure just in case.

At any rate, a great roar reached them.

A streamlined silhouette that was not usually a part of everyday life was accurately approaching them. Wheeled landing gear had emerged. Tension filled the girls. Despite the fighter’s elegant design, it had a real sense of weight when seen up close. It was, after all, a 20-ton piece of metal. Having it flying toward them inspired as much fear as facing down a large oncoming truck or train.

It was coming.

The screeching of the small tires rang loud.

Kongou shouted while ducked down at one side of the runway.

“Contact!!”

Metal loudly struck metal.

A thick wire stretching like a rubber band was a strange sight.

The Shinshin two-seat custom’s hook had caught the wire.

The tires screamed with white smoke.

The stench of burning rubber filled the air.

This was nothing at all like a paper airplane slowly falling to the ground. It was forcibly decelerated from more than 250km/h as if snatched by a giant hand. It was as wild a move as trying to manually stop a race car.

Awatsuki raised her voice.

“The Shinshin has stopped!”

“Confirmed!”

Wannai, who had been ready with her water but ultimately wasn’t needed, provided the double check.

Kongou stood up.

“Tractor, drive forward. Once Misaka’s craft is on the elevator, the next one will be coming. Everyone else, check the runway. Even a 5mm piece of tire could be deadly, so do not overlook anything!!”

Part 3

“Sigh, I love swimming… Especially in such a large pool. Oh, I have an idea. I hear they have a sauna over there☆”

“My, my. Look at the size of this kitchen. We could cook just about any type of cuisine in here. How should we decide who is on cooking duty?”

“Beauty salon, beauty salon. Time for a mudpack.”

Evening had arrived.

Since the Izanami was camouflaged as a cruise ship, it didn’t have the usual closed-in feeling of a military vessel. It had no end of options for entertainment: a shopping mall, a theater, a sports gym, restaurants, etc. The pool even had a twisting and turning water slide.

There was no problem getting rooms for everyone either. Tokiwadai’s full student body numbered nearly 200, but there were more than 1000 guest cabins.

They hadn’t actually counted, but it didn’t look like there was any risk of the food stores running out any time soon. That said, they were talking about supporting 200 people. That many people consumed a lot of supplies in a day. If they treated the food as casually as the contents of their family fridge, it might come back to bite them.

“That aside…”

Shokuhou Misaki’s icy voice filled the belowdecks maintenance hangar, which felt so far away from all the fun and laughter.

An F-22A.

A girl in a long-sleeved black leotard, who had to be nearly 20m tall.

Mikoto had shot her down, but when they came to collect her from the ocean, she had still been alive.

Now she was seated with her arms around her knees and glaring at Shokuhou. Without speaking a word. That probably was the most compact position for storage in a hangar, but it looked a lot more like the girl with curly blonde twintails was pouting. Sitting like that without crushing the wings and engine on her back below her butt seemed like it would be tricky.

Shokuhou held her head in her hands.

“How am I supposed to process what I’m seeing here?”

“I seriously doubt there are any girls this size on Earth,” said Mikoto who had actually fought her.

A biological approach definitely couldn’t explain this, but Mikoto also didn’t think she had ever seen an Academy City esper who could scale their physical size upwards like this. Not that she had looked into every esper power in the city.

And Mikoto’s eyes landed on the F-22A’s ultra-luxury chest hidden behind her knees. Or rather, the size thereof. Academy City’s #3 gently smiled. It was nice and small. Was that choice made to preserve her high stealth capability? Yes, Misaka Mikoto was kind to any girl with a bra size smaller than her own!!

“Hee hee. You don’t have to worry. You can leave everything to me. I promise you we will treat you well, so-”

“Don’t you look down on me, tiny chest. Mine are bound as tightly as possible out of necessity, so they are not actually a pathetic washboard like yours.”

Hokaze had to use her prized strength to restrain the girl who attempted to fire a Railgun inside the ship.

But that was the first thing she said?

This did confirm they could communicate, but did that mean this world also used Japanese? Or had she been listening to their conversation and learned the language at Mach speed? That was a scary thought, but they had to at least consider it. They had too little information to rule it out.

Mikoto sighed softly and spoke.

“Anyway, since she’s alive, shouldn’t we see what she can tell us?”

“Euahhh…”

“Stop acting like a toddler, Big Boobs Queen. I mean, this is apparently an F-22A. I want to know how their weapons tech works and whether this was a pair of stray weapons attacking us or if they were ordered to attack by a military or a nation.”

The idea of a stray F-22A just flying around on its own was absurd by Earth standards, but those standards might not apply in this world. It was a completely different world after all. Hanging onto old assumptions could lead to a fatal mistake, so Mikoto wanted to confirm what she could.

“We don’t know how to return to Earth, so we’re going to need to travel around this world searching out a way. And I get the feeling we’re going to encounter more anthropomorphized fighters as we do so.”

“Ugh. How flexible is your mind, Misaka-san? You’re not even questioning the idea that this is another world anymore, are you?”

The one who looked most surprised was the strangest of them all: the F-22A.

She looked to the Shinshin and F-2As in the hangar.

“Are you really calling those things fighters? But they’re just flimsy metal without any feminine skin or pretty hair. You’re not making any sense.”

“Can you tell us what you mean by that?”

Mikoto’s interjection made the curly twintails girl fall silent again. She must have realized she was carelessly giving away information. She was scowling now. But did that mean this was a world with a military that’s higher ups had ordered her not to give away classified information? Or was it a coincidence?

“Why should I tell you dumbasses?”

“…”

“Heh. The savage is thinking savage thoughts, I’ll bet. Fine, as a military aircraft, I am ready for whatever might happen. C’mon, torment me however you like. I am not so weak I would talk to some vulgar and brutal barbarian warriors no matter what cruel torture you subject me to!!”

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance. In perfect harmony.

Hmm?

“Wait, wait just a moment! What are you doing with those pliers!? And that wrench!? Did no one ever teach you the proper way to treat a lady!?”

“Aircraft need daily maintenance, so why are you so afraid of a wrench?”

“Wh-what? What are you doing with my armor? There!? But that’s my most sensitive part! Y-you’re opening it? Ah, ah, ahhhhh!?”

“Oh, we won’t hurt you. But if you don’t hurry up and talk, we will be dumping a bucket of seawater on all this radar equipment inside your wide-open nose.”

“No, please, anything but filling me up with that salty stuff!!!”

By the end, the F-22A was crumpled in a heap, sobbing and trembling as she tried to catch her breath. Tears glittered in the corners of her eyes.

They had discovered the girl portions covered more of her than the mech parts.

“You devils. You’re just a bunch of devils!!”

“Just tell us everything you can about this world. Next, we’ll go behind you and remove your jet engines.”

The F-22A used this new fear to crush the old one and calm herself enough to talk, albeit while trembling.

“W-we are weapons.”

“Sure.”

“Specifically, we are Girlish Weapons. We are not products of nature. We were created by humans.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance.

Artificial girls.

Created for military use.

Tingling tension ran through the air.

“…This wasn’t done with clone technology, was it?”

“Close, but not really.” The F-22A brushed a curly twintail from her shoulder. “Frozen Fossils are found all across the world. Each country has a different production rate and different processing technology…but military cells are extracted from that naturally-occurring frozen meat, those cells are artificially processed, and they are cultivated into the desired shape. Once the exterior equipment is attached, you have a Girlish Weapon like me.”

Several new terms were scattered through that explanation.

Frozen Fossils, frozen meat, military cells, Girlish Weapons.

If the Frozen Fossils and frozen meat referred to the same thing, then the fossils were not like dinosaur bones and ammonites. Were they more like a frozen mammoth discovered in the permafrost?

But something else caught their attention more.

“Each country?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean this world has multiple countries, each with a military to defend it?”

“Of course. I am the ultimate stealth fighter, not some cheap junk like the corporate mercenaries and terrorists use.”

Shokuhou held a hand to her forehead.

And a certain someone had carelessly shot her down. A certain someone named Misaka Mikoto.

…While it had been necessary, this meant they had made at least one country into an enemy. As extraordinary as the carrier was, taking on an entire country’s military with just the one ship wasn’t realistic.

“This continent has three major countries.”

“So like Wei, Wu, and Shu?”

The F-22A tilted her head.

…If the famous Records of the Three Kingdoms didn’t mean anything to people here, then this really was another world that didn’t share Earth’s time or space.

“The United States of Narmeli, the Cutalularia Republic, and the Liheilstaut Empire. Most of the humans belong to one of those three. There are plenty of other smaller countries and autonomous provinces, but I doubt their combined population is even 10% of the big three. Majority rule in international politics is pretty much entirely determined by the big three.”

She had said something else interesting.

Most of the humans.

Why not “most of us”?

“Wait, did you just refer to humans as a separate category from yourself? So is not everyone in this world a giant anthropomorphized weapon girl like you?”

“Of course not. Humans are humans, weapons are weapons. We are entirely different. Also, I am not ‘giant’. It’s you humans who are so puny and small. Dumbasses.”

The F-22A spat this out with contempt for their ignorance in her eyes. …She went back to tearfully twitching when Mikoto clanged her wrench against a nearby column, though.

But.

Thinking back, hadn’t she said the Girlish Weapons were created by “the humans”?

The giant girl was apparently an F-22A, but she had no pilot.

Then what role did the humans play in the military? If the humans were only the infantry at the very bottom and the commanders at the top, the system seemed awfully unbalanced.

And the F-22A went on to explain each of the “big three” countries that fought for supremacy on the giant continent.

“First, the United States of Narmeli. They hold the northeast of the continent. More than 70% of their land is permafrost, giving them the greatest quantity of buried Frozen Fossils, but they are no more than barbarians who lack the technology to convert it into Girlish Weapons. They are a major presence in terms of the size of their territory, but – tch – that’s all they have going for them. Without their loathsome resources and quantity, the war front wouldn’t be in a stalemate. Well, the entire world apparently freezes over every 150 years, so if the status quo can be preserved for long enough, their land will freeze over and they will die out on their own.”

“Second, the Cutalularia Republic. They call themselves the superpower of the south, but they are nothing but a gaggle of barbarians who can’t even preserve order in their own country. The temperature and humidity there is high, so they have the least quantity of buried Frozen Fossils. They have a high level of technology and can manage a high level of production efficiency with just one fossil, but after luring in arms manufacturers with their extremely low corporate tax rate, they have transformed into a barely-held-together collection of corporations from more than 30 countries and regions. They have no spirit of patriotism or national identity, so they try to make up for it by filling their military with unmanned weapons. They claim to use general elections to run their country, but everyone knows those elections are a complete joke. All the real power is held by a few influencers.”

“Lastly, the Liheilstaut Empire! The shining star of the northwest and the true center of the world. Abundant resources, abundant food, abundant riches, abundant technology, and – most importantly – an abundant population!! Hee hee. The combination of plentiful Frozen Fossils and excellent industrial technological expertise creates the perfect country that is bound to go down in history as the greatest conqueror of all. Each and every citizen is brimming with patriotism and every branch of the military – army, navy, air force, and marines – is at such a high level that trite terms like ‘the greatest’ or ‘the best’ doesn’t do them justice. They overpower the competition when it comes to art as well, so unlike those barbarians who have their hands full simply making things ‘functional’ and ‘practical’, they have the brainpower leftover to design the sharpest looking Girlish Weapons around! Ho ho ho ho ho ho!!”

Mikoto’s mouth formed a small triangle.

And she spoke.

“Let me guess, you’re from the Empire.”

“H-how did you know!? D-don’t tell me you’ve already sent filthy spies into our glorious Imperial territory!?”

No, you just had a completely different attitude with that one. And you need to apologize to the other two. Then again, maybe those insults were just what happened during wartime. Plus, the bomber (woman) had come from the northwest and departed to the northwest.

Apparently the continent was shaped a lot like a Y.

The countries could invade each other by land, but the center of the Y-shaped continent contained a treacherous mountain range and each major power was well aware of the risk of invasion by land, so they had covered that area with mines, gun emplacements, sandbags, barbed wire, pillboxes, and so on. This had created an eternal labyrinth of deadly trenches.

“Those three countries do technically work together in a coalition, but that’s in name only. Hmph. Preserving world peace is too much for the States and the Republic to handle. Our great Liheilstaut Empire can handle it all on our own.”

“Wait, what’s this about a coalition?”

“They call it the International Peace Agency, but it’s really a den of corruption.”

Uh, oh.

It sounded like they had something like the UN here.

That meant an attack against the Liheilstaut Empire could result in retaliation from a massive coalition force containing all three major powers. In other words, the Tokiwadai girls might be facing a war against this entire world.

“I need to get Kobayashi-san or someone to check on that later… Hopefully there aren’t any ominous radio transmissions traveling between those major powers.”

So.

For now, the Liheilstaut Empire was definitely an enemy. They were the ones who had fired anti-ship missiles at a ship that had only sent out an SOS.

And now there was a possibility of the United States and the Republic joining in as a coalition.

Maybe that was just what happened when an unidentified but very deadly warship suddenly appeared in someone’s territorial waters. The cruise ship camouflage may have only made it look more malicious. Mikoto breathed a heavy sigh.

(This isn’t going to be easy.)

It was only a rough look, but this was enough basic social studies.

However…

“You said they extract cells from the Frozen Fossils, cultivate those to create the base form, and then attach equipment to create you Girlish Weapons, right?”

“What about it?”

Mikoto and Shokuhou both fell silent.

…Then what was Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami?

The nuclear-powered ship was filled with Japanese fighters and it flouted the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. The F-22A’s story did nothing to explain that. Yet they were fairly certain it hadn’t existed on their Earth.

Part 4

The next event happened in the middle of the night. At 2AM to be precise.

A voice burst from all the speakers in Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami. Kobayashi’s voice.

“Alert!! Radar is showing eight objects flying straight for us from the northwest. They are hostile! Everyone hurry to the section you were assigned at dinnertime and take your post. I repeat, we are under attack!”

“Damn, I just know they’re harassing us in the night to wear us down.”

Mikoto’s head still felt terribly heavy, suggesting she was still tired.

“By the way, Kuroko, why are you right there next to me…in bed?”

“Hee hee. Do we really need to explain these things at this stage in our relationship?”

“This ship has! A thousand cabins!! And everyone was given their own!”

A serious night attack wouldn’t target the very middle of the night when people would actually be most on guard, but they couldn’t ignore a formation of enemy aircraft.

Mikoto didn’t have time to change out of her pajamas. She grabbed a thin cardigan and left the room, only to run into Shokuhou in the long corridor. Apparently that girl’s idea of sleepwear was sheer negligee. She had the same sinister tastes as Shirai Kuroko there…

Ringlets Hokaze was following after Shokuhou while giving the Queen’s bouncing blonde hair a thorough brushing. …Had she also snuck into the Shokuhou’s cabin without her knowledge?

Mikoto and Shokuhou walked briskly down the corridor while other girls rushed frantically around.

“There are 8 enemies,” said Mikoto. “Yawn…oh, and they came from the northwest.”

“That means they’re almost certainly from the Empire, but we can’t be certain yet. Another country’s aircraft might have flown in a big loop to reach us from that direction.”

“And by aircraft, you mean…?”

“Yes, those Girlish Weapons. The flying girls.”

Whatever they looked like, it had already been proven they had dogfighting and missile launching capability. So an error in responding to them could get the camouflaged aircraft carrier sunk along with all the students aboard. They couldn’t afford to underestimate this world’s technology.

“We don’t have anywhere near enough information or time. I’d love to gather in a big conference room to hold a quick briefing, but I need you and the others up in the air right away, Misaka-san. Once you confirm the 8 unidentified craft are hostile, you can shoot them down.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be borrowing Hokaze-san there and a few others. If we can’t match their 8, we can’t stop some of them from reaching the carrier while we’re busy with others.”

Shokuhou and Kobayashi (who had joined them from another route) went to the CIC while Mikoto, Shirai, Hokaze, and some others went to the maintenance hangar which contained the launching catapult.

Kongou Mitsuko was forming a megaphone with her hands and shouting.

“101 Squadron will take off one at a time. Pilots, I need you ready and waiting in your cockpits. The tractor will move you into position, so don’t blast your jet engines and wander around on your own!!”

Mikoto sighed.

“Where’d that 101 come from?”

“That’s your squadron, Misaka-san. Also, you are Railgun 01, Shirai-san is Teleport 02, and Hokaze-san is Rampage 03. When communicating with the carrier, use Izanami. When addressing me personally, use Mental 00☆”

“Is there any point in using call signs after using our real names over the radio so much before? Even if our transmissions are encrypted. I’m sure the Empire is working day and night to break the code.”

Then again, this was another world, so it wasn’t like Imperial agents could use their personal information to threaten their families.

“My, my. Are these the flight suits?”

“Such futuristic designs.”

“C’mon, everyone. You’re being scrambled, so hurry up and change!”

With only girls around, the oddly carefree students casually stripped off their sleepwear and donned their flight suits. The crude maintenance hangar looked like a girls locker room filled with the sweet scents of sports drinks and perfume.

And Mikoto had no reason to hesitate either. Not a one.

Then she looked over at Shirai. With obvious distrust.

“…”

“Geh heh heh. Tie me up or restrain me – it doesn’t matter. Do you really think you can keep a teleporter in one place? Now, it’s time to enjoy my Onee-sama’s live strip showwwww!!”

Mikoto slowly walked around behind Shirai.

When Shirai tried to look back, Mikoto latched her hand onto the back of her head.

“There, that’s better. I just have to keep an eye on you from your blind spot. If you turn around or teleport away even once, I’ll blast you with a Railgun.”

“Weh heh heh!! J-just imagining you bashfully removing your clothing one piece at a time while staring intently at me isn’t bad at all. Ahh, now my brain juices are really pumping…”

“Damn, I forgot perverts know how to convert anything in their favor.”

Mikoto decided being quick about it would be better than worrying over every little thing, so she reached for her pajamas, stripped down to her underwear, and then reached for her flight suit.

If she was being charitable, she would call it a high-performance riding suit.

If she was being uncharitable, she would call it brightly-colored full-body tights.

The neon blue with yellow lines gave it lightning colors.

The flight suits did not have a standardized design. The basic design was the same, but the colors differed. For example, Shirai’s was pink with white lines and Hokaze’s was light purple with red lines.

Those two had already worn theirs once, so they were past questioning it.

It still felt strange to Mikoto thanks to her Earth-based knowledge, but after her experience flying in her summer uniform, she knew she couldn’t be picky.

“Why does it have velcro on the belly, back, underarms, and thighs? I’m afraid those parts will come undone.”

“It makes me think of a next-generation school swimsuit.”

Hokaze provided that strange term with a smile.

Was it for regulating body temperature? Or did it allow the air within the suit to escape when the pressure changed? It sort of reminded Mikoto of zippered plastic bags that prevented leaks when storing leftovers in the fridge, or of the steam vents on frozen foods that were microwaved inside their bags.

Mikoto used a simple gangway resembling a tennis umpire chair to board the Shinshin.

She took a look around the hangar from that higher position. There were multiple types of aircraft, but most were F-2As. …Was that a bad sign? To keep costs down, those were basically a Japanese customization of the excellent F-16 design. That meant their specs were inferior to the truly top-level fighters. Depending on what the Empire had sent, this could be a difficult fight.

And…

“Coming through,” said a voice.

The giant girl with curly blonde twintails was down on all fours and slowly moving through the hangar. She apparently had small wheels. That was the F-22A in a long-sleeved black leotard. She was moving into the catapult standby position.

Did she intend to join the fight?

Since Mikoto had already closed her cockpit canopy, shouting wouldn’t help, so she focused on the radio instead.

“Hey! You’re an Imperial fighter, aren’t you? You aren’t going to join the enemy squadron once you take off, are you!?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Whatever you plan to do with me as a POW, I am a noble fighter and I intend to repay you for your help.”

“?”

Come to think of it, the F-22A had fallen into the ocean after her right tail assembly was damaged, but what had happened to that damage? The Izanami obviously wasn’t equipped with spare parts for an F-22A (especially a giant girl version).

Kongou Mitsuko caught Mikoto’s eye, winked, and gave her a thumbs up. With a smug grin. …Apparently she had taken a spare part for the Shinshin and cut it down to the right size and shape before using it to replace the damaged part. The idea was crude, but the work had been superb.

Was that the help the F-22A had alluded to?

Apparently the daughter of Kongou Airlines’ president had managed to win over this world’s greatest stealth fighter.

Mikoto sounded exasperated.

“Well, I’m glad you want to help, but can you even take off from the carrier at your size?”

“Heh. I am the YF-22A, the special final test model that emerged gloriously victorious from the competition against a certain loser I could mention.”

“What?” asked Mikoto without thinking.

So she wasn’t an ordinary F-22A? After Mikoto had gotten used to thinking of her that way? The damn carrier’s computer estimation must have been wrong.

That fighter just had to make this confusing, didn’t she?

The long-sleeved black leotard girl proudly brushed back one of her curly twintails as she spoke.

“That means I am a size smaller than the mass-produced F-22A. You called this the Izanami, right? It seems to be equipped with a high-power electromagnetic catapult, so I won’t have any trouble. I am the only F-22 model light enough to take off from a ship! Heh heh heh, ha ha ha! Yes, only me!!”

“Oh, that explains it.”

“What part of me do you think you are looking at, Miss Washboard? Unlike a loser like you, I am keeping my chest wrapped up tight. It isn’t easy, but I need to reduce my curves as much as possible to preserve my excellent stealth capabilities.”

Mikoto considered firing her machinegun inside the maintenance hangar, but Shirai’s fighter blasted its jet engine to move in between them. That failure to obey the tractor’s instructions earned her some angry gesticulation from Kongou.

(Well, it’s not my problem, so whatever.)

Once Mikoto abandoned all responsibility there, Shokuhou’s exasperated voice arrived over the radio.

“What should we call her? Just F-22A could lead to confusion ability later on.”

“I just told you – I am the special YF-22A!!”

“How about Twintails 04?”

“Teleport 02, I object. That is my identity.”

“Uh, then curly-”

“Rampage 03, objection.”

“Um, uh, I’m sick of thinking, so let’s just go with Brat 04!”

“Do I not get to object!? This is a violation of my fundamental rights!”

Mikoto was a little concerned she would betray them over this, but having a member of the highly-regarded F-22 family would mean a lot. In mock battles, they had even won a crushing victory of 1 against more than 100.

The enemy numbered 8. With her and Mikoto’s Shinshin together, they could probably take on that many while also protecting the others in their F-2 varieties.

Kongou apparently liked to get the unfamiliar part of a job done first, so she had the YF-22A girl prepare for takeoff first.

Specifically, she had the giant long-sleeved leotard girl lie prone on the catapult. It looked like she was lying on a sled in preparation to descend an icy slope head first. So not the bobsled or the luge. It was the…um, no I can’t get the word bobsled out of my head! Hmm…oh, right. The skeleton!!

“Catapult and launch bar are in place! Control, is the sky clear? Brat 04 will be taking off. Count 3!!”

“Brat 04, roger that. Ahhh, I’m stuck with that awful call name, aren’t I?”

On Kongou’s signal, the YF-22A slid rapidly along the guide rail. The air compressed and burst out as a gust of wind. At more than 250km/h, she rivaled a race car.

Mikoto was somewhat impressed inside the waiting Shinshin’s cockpit.

“That mech girl is really flying.”

“She’s part of your 101 Squadron now, Misaka-san, so shoot her down the instant she does anything suspicious,” said Shokuhou. “I secretly removed the restrictions on the squadron leader’s fighter, so you can ignore Brat 04’s friendly IFF signal and lock onto her☆”

“You’re a monster.”

Kongou waved both her arms to provide a signal.

“Connect Misaka-sama’s Shinshin to the catapult next. We want the best two fighters in the air to guard the ship as we launch the F-2s! If they are targeted before they can stabilize their speed and attitude, they will be sitting ducks!!”

“Railgun 01, roger that.”

The electromagnetic catapult launched the Shinshin.

It felt so different this time.

The specialized flight suit helped keep her mind clear and she had no trouble breathing. Her lungs felt so much more free.

An anti-g suit protected a pilot form the high gs of high-speed combat maneuvers, preventing blackouts. That might make it sound like a high-tech piece of equipment that controlled both the body and mind…but the actual design was fairly crude. The problem was the powerful inertial forces sent the blood down into the legs where it could not return to the head, so it only had to mechanically constrict the thighs just before high-g combat to temporarily cut off the flow of blood to the legs. That meant a fighter pilot who didn’t want to lose their legs could not dogfight at full specs for very long. But if they were fine with having their necrotic legs amputated afterwards, that was another story.

However, the flight suits found on the Izanami appeared to be a bit more advanced. A weak electrical current flowed through the interior of the skintight material, activating the veins which were meant to act like pumps and accelerating the circulation of blood throughout the body. That meant they didn’t have to worry about their legs.

So…

(I can directly control electricity, so do I not even need the suit? …No, no. This is about bodily control, so it’s more of a Hokaze-san thing. Although she might run out of stamina quick if she had to be using her power at all times.)

Mikoto flew in a large circle around the carrier as she spoke into the radio.

“Railgun 01 here. Takeoff complete. I will now wait for the rest of the friendly fighters to takeoff before- hey, Brat 04! Don’t blast your afterburners yet! Teleport 02 and Rampage 03 aren’t in the air yet!!”

“Heh. Why should I wait for you ignorant plebs to catch up? Not only am I from the F-22 family, but I am the special YF-22A. I’m sure those are only some outdated models, so it doesn’t matter how many there are. It is my noble duty to bring down anyone who opposes me!!”

She flew straight toward the enemy group on her own.

For a supersonic fighter, about 100km was nothing at all.

(Oh, I see she calls them ‘anyone’. She sees them as people, not machines.)

Mikoto made a mental note of that while the two dots on the radar intersected without waiting for the Shinshin and F-2As.

And…

“Hellllp! I’m surrounded and the missile lock alarm won’t stop sounding!”

“How weak are you!?” shouted Mikoto on reflex.

Did this tearful mayday from an F-22 count as an extremely rare historical event?

Shokuhou’s exasperated voice came over the radio.

“While the F-22A’s superiority is globally famous, I seem to recall that comes from its spec abilities on paper and its results in mock battles. I believe it has very little actual combat experience. And after paying so much money on it, wouldn’t the developing country want to exaggerate its abilities as propaganda?”

More than that, the YF-22A was only an experimental model. Actual combat would mean the stress of 9gs or more, but the development competition only went up to 7gs. Why was the F-22A a size bigger? Because some small adjustments and reinforcements had been made to prepare it for actual combat. The YF-22A didn’t have that. Meaning it was overly specialized and thus fragile.

“Your thrust vectoring nozzles and stealth aren’t divine miracles, so the other side is going to be researching countermeasures.”

Stealth aircraft did not appear on radar, but only when viewed from one direction. That changed if it was exposed to radar waves from multiple directions and that information was shared via a datalink. If the radar waves diverted in a different direction by the stealth aircraft’s surface were picked up at a different angle, it would appear on radar.

Not to mention that it would be pursued and attacked like normal in a dogfight at close enough range for visual observation.

And even if that high-level fighter was an idiot, this fight would be a lot harder if she was shot down. Mikoto’s Shinshin alone wouldn’t be enough to wipe out the enemy while also protecting the F-2s.

(Damn, I would really prefer to wait until 102 and 103 Squadron are in the air.)

“I’m going to go rescue her, even if she is an idiot. Everyone who’s in the air already, come with me!!”

“Roger that, Onee- Railgun 01.”

“Roger!”

There were eight enemies. If they could all be stopped by the vanguard, the fighters taking off from the carrier would remain safe without anyone there to protect them.

Mikoto formed up with Shirai and Hokaze and charged on in.

It was a dark night, but the moonlight helped a lot. Mikoto’s appreciation for it grew once they were above the clouds. And as they approached the trouble area, she could see the details not shown on the flat radar.

“Yikes, Onee-sama…”

“Yeah, they’re really going at it.”

It was best described as a swarm of furious hornets.

That they all looked like scantily-clad girls made it hard to interpret at first, but based on the shape of their main wings and engine exhaust ports, the enemy was a mixed squadron of F-14Ds, famous for their variable-sweep wings (school swimsuit catgirls with the main wings on their backs linked to the movement of their arms), and F-15Cs, the bearers of the strongest title in the pre-stealth era (curvy leggings mamas with giant wings spreading out from the joints on their shoulders).

It wasn’t just YF-22A.

The other aircraft were giant girls too.

So were these all Girlish Weapons? This was the standard in this world, so the weird ones were Mikoto and the others who had to put on flight suits and climb aboard steel aircraft.

Mikoto frowned.

“…? I would get F-14s, but can F-15s take off from a carrier?”

“No sign of an enemy carrier in the vicinity,” reported Shokuhou. “Could it be a long-distance attack launched from land? With a midair refueling stop along the way?”

Mikoto’s Shinshin could manage against those large F-15Cs, but Shirai, Hokaze, and the others in smaller F-2s would be overpowered.

The Liheilstaut Air Force had to have detected their approach on radar.

The enemy’s plan appeared to be to start by concentrating on hunting down the troublesome YF-22A and then tear through the inferior F-2s at their leisure, but the initial idiot’s unexpectedly quick evasive maneuvers were throwing a wrench in that plan.

Mikoto was a little impressed. She wasn’t about to say so out loud, though.

(She’s fleeing from eight fighters at once without getting shot down. Hm, I guess that crybaby idiot has some skill after all.)

Anyway, she was risking her life to buy this time.

That was their ticket to survival.

Mikoto’s squadron was in position to take them on.

“Railgun 01 to 101 Squadron. Don’t fly out ahead. Stay by my side!!”

“Onee-sama, you are not one to talk there.”

The situation here was different from the previous dogfight against YF-22A.

This was a head-on clash between two squadrons.

This was a group battle.

Part 5

Four F-14Ds.

Four F-15Cs.

Both types had their pros and cons, but the F-15C (curvy leggings mamas) were likely the greater threat here.

Mikoto quickly made some observations.

(Those Girlish Weapons really do have a lot of variations.)

The sturdy joint running from the back to to the back of the hips appeared to be standard because these two types had it as well. But the weaponization of the arms and legs had a lot more variety. For example, the F-15Cs’ arms were mechanical all the way up to the shoulder, but the legs in their leggings were entirely biological. The F-14Ds’ arms and legs were weaponized all the way up to where they emerged from the school swimsuits.

(Are more of the biological parts replaced with aerospace materials each time they’re modernized? No, that isn’t it. YF-22A is an early test model, but her arms and legs are mostly weaponized.)

The enemy was flying around like a swarm of angry hornets, but careful inspection revealed they were split into two-fighter groups with an F-14D (school swimsuit catgirl) always flying behind an F-15C. That showed who was in charge.

The F-14Ds’ variable-sweep wings gave them excellent mobility even at low speed and low altitude, so they were the hounds who pursued a target to make it easier for the generally stronger F-15Cs to get a lock. They probably also took care of any enemies the F-15Cs missed due to flying by too quickly.

So which should Mikoto’s squadron target first: the stronger ones or the weaker ones?

(If we shoot down the weaker F-14Ds first, the F-15Cs won’t have to protect them anymore and can start using their full abilities.)

“Railgun 01 to 101 Squadron. Focus on the F-15Cs! They’re fast and mobile, but we can keep them from escaping by surrounding them from multiple directions!”

“Of course you want to tackle the stronger ones first. Onee-sama, I think you may have been a macho martial artist in your past life.”

Mikoto was too busy to listen to that nonscientific hogwash.

The Imperial fighters were sticking to two-fighter units, but that still meant they had four units. Since Mikoto’s squadron couldn’t count on YF-22A as she tearfully fled, they only had three fighters to work with. That put them at a numerical disadvantage.

The enemy was confident.

Four of them pursued YF-22A while the remaining four split into two units of two. Those units drew out wide arcs as they turned their noses around and charged sharply in from the left and right.

Uh, oh.

“Teleport 02, head to the right and use your radar. Rampage 03, come with me and help me set up a barrage of autocannon fire down the center!!”

“Onee-sama, I can’t get a lock soon enough to-”

“You just have to scare them into breaking formation!! If they complete their pincer attack, we’re dead!”

Flying head-on at close range would only last an instant. The Imperial fighters would know Mikoto’s squadron didn’t have time to get a lock and launch a missile.

But that didn’t mean there was nothing they could do.

With the manually-aimed autocannon, they didn’t have to wait for a lock. They just had to use their skill to make up for the poor accuracy. For example, if they approached from either side and fired from two directions simultaneously, a frantic attempt to escape one stream of bullets would lead the enemy right into the other.

So before the enemy formation could complete their pincer attack…

“Now!!”

Shirai’s fighter took action just as Mikoto’s and Hokaze’s did.

The enemy was approaching sharply from the sides, but if one half of the pincer was scared off by the missile lock alarm, the two sides couldn’t close in on them. It was only a bluff though, so they wouldn’t actually have a chance to launch an air-to-air missile.

And once the enemy took evasive action, their movements would be sloppier. When moving in formation, moving around too much could lead to a collision with your wingmate.

Mikoto’s side only had to prepare a thick barrage of autocannon fire.

Instead of Mikoto and Hokaze trying to pursue the enemy, they would wait for the enemy to carelessly fly into their barrage.

The intersection happened in an instant.

Even so, orange sparks scattered from F-15C armor, a small explosion occurred, and Mikoto heard a sound like claws scratching at something.

A small piece of broken wing must have hit her as she passed by.

That was no laughing matter for a stealth fighter covered in extremely pricey paint.

“One down. An F15C, I think!!”

“Your reports need more accuracy ability.”

“We passed by at supersonic speed – and it’s the relative speed that matters!! How am I supposed to visually follow that!?”

They could ignore the leggings mama trailing smoke as she fell toward the sea.

As soon as both sides passed by, two Y-shaped flowers blossomed in the dark night sky. The formations of three enemy and three friendlies split apart and made separate sharp U-turns.

The fight for each other’s tails had begun.

At times like this Mikoto’s Shinshin could turn faster and more sharply than Shirai and Hokaze’s F-2s.

In no time, Mikoto saw an F-14D up ahead.

The movements of the girl’s slender arms (which were mechanical-looking all the way to the upper arm) were linked with the variable-sweep wings, allowing for precise control of air resistance and lift, but Mikoto still had the advantage in positioning herself.

She could get on the F-14Ds tail from here.

That wasn’t her top priority, but she wasn’t going to waste a chance like this. She rapidly pursued the F-14D from behind.

A missile lock alarm sounded.

(Tch.)

That wasn’t the Shinshin getting a lock. The F-14D (school swimsuit catgirl) had fled side to side as bait while someone else pursued Mikoto from behind.

“Onee-sama, an F-15C is after you! You need to get out of- oh, damn!!”

Shirai’s warning was cut short by an air-to-air missile being launched from behind Mikoto.

It was a heat-seeking Sidewinder. And probably the latest version.

Evasive action taken after the launch had less than 50/50 odds of success, but Mikoto stayed calm and operated the control column.

Her Shinshin rapidly accelerated to fly right alongside the F-14D.

They were 5m apart.

At that distance, they might as well have been engaged in some acrobatic flying.

The incoming missile lost its target and sharply passed her as if piercing the space near the Shinshin.

It didn’t detonate.

Air-to-air missiles used IFF to identity friendlies and would not detonate too close to one. So while the F-15C had a lock, the presence of the Imperial F-14D within the blast radius automatically deactivated the proximity fuse, allowing the missile to pass by without detonation.

A thick shockwave shook the Shinshin.

The F-14D had raised her arms to spread her variable-sweep wings, which intentionally increased her air resistance and rapidly decelerated her.

Mikoto was still flying at great speed, so to her it was like the enemy suddenly vanished from view. In truth, the Shinshin had overshot the F-14D.

The F-15C was still on her tail and could kill her at any time. With her F-14D shield gone, the next missile would hit her.

“Onee-”

“It won’t be that easy.”

Mikoto dumped chaff and flares to create something like a fireworks show behind her and then made a rapid turn to leave the area. She had made sure the enemy F-14D would charge headfirst into the harmless flare downpour.

She could almost hear the enemy’s confusion.

A moment later, an air-to-air missile launched by the F-15C exploded nearby, bringing down the F-14D.

Mikoto heard a scream.

Was that the defeated F-14D, or the F-15C that had accidentally shot down her ally?

As said before, the missiles used IFF to identify friendlies. But that didn’t work if flares were scattered all around, confusing the sensor. Especially when chaff also obstructed the IFF signal itself. A missile designed to pursue the heat of engine exhaust would be lured in by the flares to explode nowhere near the enemy, which could end up harming a friendly.

Before the F-15C could mentally(?) recover from the shock of her terrible mistake, an air-to-air missile flew in from a different direction and scored a direct hit, bringing her down.

The missile came from Hokaze Junko’s F-2A.

“Rampage 03, one F-15C down☆”

That was three hostiles in all. The enemy’s two units of two formation was in shambles.

The remaining F-14D was soon surrounded by Mikoto’s squadron. Mikoto launched a missile, forcing the enemy to take a sharp turn to escape along a predictable enough path for Shirai’s autocannon to shoot her down.

In only a minute, the situation had reversed itself.

The remaining four hostiles finally noticed what was happening while they pursued YF-22A.

They quickly scattered and attempted to get a fresh start, but once the tides started turning, it was hard to stop them.

“Railgun 01 here. I’ve freed you from your sky prison, Brat 04.”

Whoever was on the other’s tail had an overwhelming advantage in a dogfight. The Imperial fighters must not have wanted to have their unguarded asses targeted while they pursued their own target.

But they should have kept YF-22A surrounded if they could.

Because this was the alternative.

“Get back to us! Now it’s 4-on-4, so they’ve lost their advantage. It’s time to bring them all down!!”

Part 6

Back on Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami.

Or more accurately, in the CIC hidden down in the bowels of the ship. Its explosion-resistant walls may have been even sturdier than those around the nuclear-powered engine.

Without any windows, the room was dark and felt even more stifling than a bank vault. It was in there that the bob cut girl named Kobayashi spoke without taking her eyes off the radar screen.

She had an elegant smile on her lips.

“The final one has been shot down. That’s Misaka-sama for you. Now we should be safe for the time being.”

“Continue monitoring our surroundings. That might have all been a diversion while they use the cover of darkness to sneak in a stealth fighter or launch an anti-ship missile from a sub.”

“Yes, yes. …Queen, you really should let that kindness show more often.”

They had fought a squadron of eight with inferior numbers and suffered zero casualties.

Even in this strange world, Misaka Mikoto really was merciless once the fighting started. The way that battle freak got more excited the greater the crisis told Shokuhou she probably had a mental perpetual motion machine inside her.

The situation facing the Izanami was fairly hopeless when looked at rationally, but it didn’t feel that way thanks to the Tokiwadai Ace’s carefree flying.

Shokuhou sighed.

“But now we have even more captured fighters. Will the maintenance hangar even hold eight more?”

“It would be a shame to throw them out.”

She knew that.

She also knew that way of thinking was dangerous.

The Izanami’s supply of jet fuel and weapons wasn’t unlimited, so they wanted to bring in anything they could capture. And since Girlish Weapon YF-22A was Imperial, there was a good chance the captured missiles and ammunition would follow the same standards, allowing her to use them.

But it was all for nothing if the maintenance hangar ended up packed too full to get any work done.

That would be a waste.

Greed would be their undoing.

…So what was the right choice here?

“Kongou-san is the maintenance hangar manager, right? Wasn’t she already demonstrating some complaint ability?”

“Well, the Izanami had a full load to begin with and now we’re adding these captured fighters, so it is getting cramped in there. Plus, that thing is in there too.”

“…Oh, that.”

“Yes, that.”

Unlike a normal(?) aircraft carrier, this one had its true identity camouflaged, meaning the electromagnetic catapult was inside the indoor maintenance hangar.

That added extra equipment that took up even more space.

(Did they intentionally send in old non-stealth fighters in order to trouble us like this? No, I’m overthinking it.)

Either way, they had to decide whether or not they would be picking up the (giant girl) F-14Ds and F-15Cs that Mikoto’s squadron had shot down into the ocean.

What were they going to do?

As Shokuhou tried to decide, she heard a clattering sound.

Kobayashi was staring at the radar screen. So intently she had stood up from her chair.

“What is it?”

“I have something on radar.”

Tension ran through Shokuhou.

Was there more already?

“Range, direction, and type!?”

“Within 300km to the south. It’s too big to be an aircraft. If I had to guess, I would say a 10 thousand ton warship.”

“Kh.”

That was smaller than the 100 thousand ton Izanami, but it was still cruiser class. Even at a distance, it could be dangerous if it started launching long-distance cruise missiles.

Why hadn’t they seen it before now?

Unlike the small flying aircraft, large ships were easy to miss on radar. Because they could hide behind things. For example, staying on the other side of an island mountain was enough to hide from a carrier’s early-warning radar.

So that wasn’t the question.

Shokuhou Misaki needed to be considering another question.

Such as…

(Why did they move their ship to reveal themselves to us now!?)

“We have an incoming transmission. Wh-what!?”

“A belated demand for surrender?”

“Y-yes.”

When Kobayashi turned away from the instruments, she was trembling for some reason.

She even had tears in her eyes.

“But this isn’t from the Liheilstaut Empire. …I-I think we’re really in trouble this time.”

“?”

Part 7

Meanwhile, Mikoto’s squadron was making their carefree return to the carrier.

It was still just barely before dawn.

“Sigh, I’m exhausted. I need to recharge by eating something sweet.”

“Onee-sama, um, I don’t mean to be rude, but do you know what time it is? Enjoying some sweets at 3 in the morning seems a little barbaric to me.”

“Just wait an hour and it will be 4 in the morning, Railgun 01. That is the perfect time for some yogurt or cereal sprinkled with dried fruit to make it feel like a dessert☆”

Would their insistence on ordinary mealtimes and 8 hours of sleep go away once they began combat shifts on the carrier? Mikoto was a little worried.

(Ugh, I feel so sluggish.)

They hadn’t been in the air for long, but the weight of exhaustion pressed down on them now that the dogfight was over. It was like they had spent 20 or 30 minutes sprinting at full speed and now they were paying the price.

Was it that hard to sense the changes in their bodies when the fear of death and thrill of the speed had their adrenaline and dopamine pumping? They had been exposed to gs several times that of Earth’s gravity. Fighters really were designed without a concern for the human body. They defied the laws of nature.

And then…

“Hm? What is it, Brat 04?”

“Th-they’ve already withdrawn the air tanker for midair refueling on a long-distance mission. I’ve already repaid my debt, but now I’ll run out of gas and crash into the ocean before reaching land!!”

“Ugh, if you don’t want to die after working so hard to win, then stop being difficult and just land on the Izanami. C’mon, we’re heading back.”

They had all survived.

Mikoto needed to focus on that. If possible, she wanted to take a bath and then climb into bed. After all this effort, she wanted to sleep well past noon.

“Railgun 01 to Izanami. The skies are safe again, so we’re heading back. Prepare for our landing. Also, I can’t wait any longer, so have a baked custard or caramel latte ready for-”

Mikoto trailed off when she noticed something.

The Izanami had changed its heading.

“?”

Cruisers – and any oblong warship – had a direction they would want to be facing an enemy. For example, a cruiser’s close-in defense Gatling guns would be lined up along the port and starboard sides, so if it wanted to create a barrage to defend itself from an incoming missile or enemy fighter, it could fire the most Gatling guns if it had its side turned toward the enemy.

But while the enemy had come from the northwest this time, the Izanami’s position had shifted.

Why were they staring to the south?

(What is Shokuhou doing? Don’t tell me she forgot to account for the force of the waves and got swept around. But if it isn’t that…)

“Did…did they correct their position to face some other enemy?”

“Izanami to all squadrons,” said a tense voice. It belonged to Kobayashi, Shokuhou’s aide who was viewing the carrier’s early-warning radar screen in the idiot’s stead. “We have detected a new enemy 300km south of us. It is a 10 thousand ton landing ship. Please follow control’s instructions.”

“Huh!?” shouted Mikoto on reflex.

She felt like she had just worked hard to finish her homework only for her teacher to inform her she had done the wrong problems.

“Another enemy? You mean…we can’t land? Or refuel!? We have to battle a ship now!?”

A landing ship.

What did the 10 thousand tons mean? In this world, were warships 100m swimsuit girls backstroking through the ocean?

Hokaze radioed over for advice.

“My, my. What do I do, Railgun 01? I thought this would be an aerial battle, so I only have air-to-air missiles loaded. Should I attack them with my autocannon?”

“We’re talking about a 10 thousand ton hunk of steel. Do you really think you can sink that with 20mm bullets? O-Oneeee-samaaaa, how hard are they planning to work us out here?”

“There isn’t even a hint of dawn yet. The day hasn’t even begun, girls☆” said the giant curly blonde twintails girl flying alongside them. “Brat 4 to squadron. I do have anti-ship missiles. Admittedly, it’s only two short-range ones, but still.”

“That’s it!!”

YF-22A had been placed on 101 Squadron without any kind of resupplying after being captured on her carrier attack mission. That meant those anti-ship missiles had originally been meant to bring down Tokiwadai, but Mikoto was willing to accept anything if it would work.

Mikoto scratched at her head, irritated by her craving for something sweet.

“Okay, the rest of us will escort Brat 04 into anti-ship missile range. If she’s taken out, we lose our trump card and I do not want to fight a marathon battle against this big boss!!”

“Carrier Izanami to all squadrons! No, stop! No attack ability! We are in serious trouble if they decode these encrypted transmissions!! Do not cause any trouble! You need to act ladylike for now!!”

“?”

Mikoto frowned.

It was unusual to hear Shokuhou Misaki so panicked in the face of an enemy. The stronger the enemy, the more that wicked girl rejoiced because she could make them into her pawn.

On the other hand, her behavior seemed somehow familiar.

Yes, it was like after lights out in the dorm when you would climb into bed and pretend to sleep until the night patrol had moved on.

But wait.

Why did that particular scene come to mind?

(What is going on?)

Then it happened.

“Hello, Misaka.”

The staticky voice over the radio was enough to produce a cold sweat on the lovely young lady’s back.

Her instincts bypassed her reason to raise the white flag.

She must not fight this person. Even considering it was suicidal. Being a Level 5 or the student of an elite school meant squat against that monster.

That voice…

That voice!!!

“It breaks my heart as the dorm manager charged with supporting a proper life for you fools, but I hear you have been breaking just about every school rule in the book as you enjoy your life in this world.”

Depth 6: Diplomatic Strategy

Part 1

They were seated in the seiza style.

In this day and age.

The girls of Tokiwadai Middle School included the daughters of corporate presidents, holders of kazoku titles, and even an actual princess, but they were all seated in the seiza style on Camouflaged Carrier Izanami’s long landing runway. Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki were no exception. Without mats or cushions below them, their legs really hurt.

(Oh, ohh, ohhhhhh…)

“Listen, you fools!!” roared the monstrous teacher – no, the monstrous dorm manager – who had arrived from the landing ship.

Mikoto’s circumstances were none of her concern.

Solid footsteps rang from the deck.

An adult woman with black hair, glasses, and a tight skirt suit paced back and forth, her back ramrod straight.

The beginnings of dawn lit the horizon.

Mikoto was blowing in the sea breeze like dried grass and she didn’t even want to calculate exactly how much time had passed.

Such a waste of her life.

“It doesn’t matter what this place is or what the situation is! You are still students of Tokiwadai Middle School! Thus, any of you whose behavior is not befitting of that title shall be punished to correct your behavior. Listen, do not forget this even in death. Greet each other with ‘how do you do’, always strive for excellence in both literary and athletic pursuits, be thoughtful and kind to all, and always hold a ladylike hand over your mouth when you laugh! Do not think a little thing like traveling to another world conveniently excuses you from your duty as students!!!!”

The blonde mass next to Mikoto was trembling.

Seated and hanging her head, Shokuhou Misaki chose to speak.

In a barely audible whisper.

“I thought other worlds were supposed to be fun. I thought you were supposed to be so overpowered no one could stand in your way.”

“Shokuhou? I don’t recall granting you the lofty right to speak. Do not speak unless I ask you a question, boneless she-ham.”

Even that insult wasn’t enough for her to pull out a remote. No, the fact that she wasn’t willing to act carelessly was enough to establish the power balance. Her fangs as a high-level esper and her pride as an influential young woman had both been broken. Shattered even.

Misaka Mikoto rubbed her hands together in her seiza position.

This was a look she could never let Uiharu Kazari or Saten Ruiko see. She felt so thoroughly cornered her smile was stiff on her face.

“Heh…eh heh…eh heh heh. B-b-b-but, Madam Dorm Manager, we were dumped into this dangerous world and we were attacked before we could even get our bearings. We were responding to an emergency. If we hadn’t fought back, the first anti-ship missile would have killed us all. S-so can’t we call it self-defense and put it all behind us?”

“We cannot.”

“…”

“Karaoke, bowling, swimming, a sauna, and even beauty treatments? You have been living it up on this unfamiliar ship – including gorging yourselves on luxury foods. What about that was an unavoidable part of the bare necessity required to protect your lives and property? Does the act of preserving your lives really have such poor cost performance? Hm?”

That was the issue?

But she had a point. There was no denying they had indulged in the luxuries found aboard the Izanami. If you ran into trouble in the mountains, there was nothing wrong with wandering into an unfamiliar mansion seeking help, but it would still be indecent to start raiding the fridge without the family’s permission.

There had been an implicit understanding that they were free to do what they liked since they were in another world, but the dorm manager had just smashed that.

Arriving in another world was not enough to escape Tokiwadai Middle School.

Right?

Right.

Mikoto’s smile froze on her face, but she still spoke in a vanishingly quite voice.

“Those grownup arguments aren’t fair.”

“Call it the power of order necessary to restrain unstable children with deadly power at their disposal. …And, Misaka, when did I grant you the lofty right to speak? This is my time to talk.”

Whatever the case, it was a hellish time.

And it didn’t sound like the storm would be passing on any time soon.

The only girl who didn’t seem bothered was YF-22A in her long-sleeved black leotard. She alone was not seated in the seiza style.

As an outsider to Tokiwadai, she was lying prone on the landing runway and grinning over at the Tokiwadai students while kicking her feet. The locals had all the luck.

“Heh hehh♪ Now this is a nice view, dumbasses. It’s what every last one of you deserves. Peh heh heh.”

“You need to learn your lesson too, giant metallic girl. Come here and sit.”

“Eh!?”

The stealth fighter initially reacted with surprise, but then she looked to the students for help.

Every last one of them refused to look her in the eye.

Mikoto felt bad for abandoning her like that.

“B-but I’m not part of your Tokiwadai group, so its rules don’t apply to-”

“As you can plainly see, I am brimming with mercy and benevolence. I couldn’t help but notice your lack of education, so I am offering to provide it pro bono. I will transform you into a proper lady. Shall we start with your manners and etiquette? Really, you are such a lucky brat. If you know how exclusive Tokiwadai is, you would be shedding tears of appreciation.”

“Hgheeee,” groaned YF-22A as she shrank down in fear.

She would have been fine if she had only behaved herself, but that idiot just had to draw attention to herself in that dorm manager’s presence.

Part 2

Once the hellish punishment was over, Mikoto and Shokuhou were taken over to Landing Ship Izanagi which had pulled up alongside Camouflaged Carrier Izanami. Forcibly taken.

The sun was already high in the sky.

It was going to be another hot day.

A weary shadow hung over Mikoto’s face.

“Izanami and Izanagi?”

“Makes it sound like they were constructed as a pair.”

A landing ship was meant to send land troops into enemy territory by sea, but that didn’t mean the ship actually cruised up onto the beach. That would only get it stuck like a beached whale. Instead, it was more like a warship that would travel close to land and then release large quantities of transport helicopters, motorboats, and hovercraft.

That said, the Izanagi didn’t look much like a warship on the outside.

It had the exterior of a 200m cargo ferry, making it a size smaller than the carrier. It of course was a steel ship, not a giant girl.

Landing ships were originally meant to transport lots of soldiers and vehicles, so a ferry meant to transport people and cars probably made for good camouflage.

The dorm manager said, “Our objective is to return to our Earth alive. Without losing a single one of you.”

“Ugh. Th-then why are you so mad at us?”

“Because that objective is not necessarily the same thing as winning the war you numbskulls started on your own. You can fight as much as necessary to protect your lives, but you should avoid it when you will only needlessly lose your lives in the process. Forfeiting is a perfectly valid trump card, fools.”

Not even Mikoto had a comeback.

This grownup was too powerful. Which may have been the normal state of affairs if she thought about it.

“This way,” quietly instructed the dorm manager while turning the handle of a watertight door.

“Wow…”

The space revealed before Mikoto was even larger than the Izanami’s maintenance hangar. She looked down at a space covering more than three levels and saw the floor was large enough to play a basketball game or even a soccer match. It looked like the entire belowdecks area had been combined into a single space.

This was a landing ship.

Ordinarily, the space would be packed full of infantry, amphibious tanks, hovercraft, and more. As a sports stadium, it would hold tens of thousands at the least.

With no soldiers there now, the small boats didn’t seem to take up much of the space. Plus, they were all pushed over toward the walls.

Something else filled the space instead.

Eight girls who had to be between 15 and 20m tall. Those were the F-14D school swimsuit catgirls and F-15C leggings mamas that Mikoto’s squadron had shot down.

“Our crane comes in handy, so we have taken on the captured aircraft the carrier can’t hold. Analyzing the enemy technology and repairing their damage are both goods ideas in our situation.”

“Sure…”

Mikoto’s noncommittal response wasn’t because she failed to grasp the importance of it. The dorm manager’s explanation just didn’t seem to mesh with what she was seeing.

The eight giants(?) were seated casually in a circle on the floor.

And they were eating giant parfaits and crepes.

While smiling.

It felt more like a girls’ sleepover or a flower viewing.

“I was worried when I fell into the sea, but not anymore. The food is good too.”

“My, my. You have cream on your cheek. Here, mommy will wipe that off with her handkerchief.”

“Mmm☆ Thankies!”

(They don’t seem concerned about being captured by the enemy. Not even a little bit.)

That was apparently giving the dorm manager a headache too.

“They are weapons, after all. To them, being ordered around and made to fight by humans is normal and expected. A sad state of affairs. It doesn’t seem to matter much to them which side they fight on.”

“So they just expect to be used? That’s not right. Come to think of it, YF-22A and these ones didn’t hesitate to shoot at each other even though they’re all Imperial.”

It looked heartwarming at first.

But once you thought about it, it was disturbing.

Also, the F-14D’s seemed polite but childish while the F-15Cs acted more motherly. It seemed like each model had its own general personality and way of speaking. …Was that part of being a mass-produced aircraft? But among the identical F-14D school swimsuit catgirls, one ate her parfait’s cherry, one avoided it, and one tied the stem into a knot with her tongue, so did their more specific preferences change based on later experiences?

Girlish Weapons.

Cells were extracted from Frozen Fossils and the cells’ DNA was redesigned and cultivated into a base form which then had armor and weapons attached.

(They really are the most basic and biggest mystery of this world.)

“What is that?”

Meanwhile, Shokuhou was focused on something else.

A few cylindrical tanks were gathered in a corner of the large space.

That wouldn’t have been too remarkable, except they were all covered by a structure resembling a clear plastic greenhouse. Fully covered.

Or…

Shokuhou frowned.

“Is that a simple operating room used for field hospitals?”

“It’s best to keep germs out. It’s a vegetable plant. It can be harvested more than 20 time a year, so as long as we have water and electricity, we won’t have to worry about nutrition. We considered catching fish as well, but we can’t rely on having reliable results there. We can’t afford to spend all our time on that. Ideally, we would get some chickens for an indefinite source of eggs.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance.

A war of another type was being waged here.

“Um, a-and what are those machines?”

“A water fuel production plant. That’s what those giant girls are eating.” The dorm manager pointed at the enormous parfaits. “When electric cars didn’t catch on as much as hoped and the government was desperate to meet the reduction goals for the greenhouse gasses, they started a project to rush the development. Since we’re on the ocean, I don’t have to explain what the source material is, do I? We’ve run a few tests altering the ratio of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, but it looks like we won’t have to worry about jet fuel. Whether you need JP-4 or JP-5, changing the mixture should provide the combustion rate needed for any specific engine.”

“…Seriously?”

“That said, this is certainly my first time altering the flavor of jet fuel and working it into the shape of a dessert.”

She was so matter-of-fact about it.

If she had been sent to this world at the same time as Mikoto and the rest of the students, only a day or two had passed. Yet the dorm manager and the teachers had built a brand new machine rather than just borrowing what already existed.

Academy City’s adults really were technology experts.

So much so that they could outdo high-level espers in some cases.

The dorm manager shrugged.

“We were sent to a world where we have no contact points for diplomacy or trade. Circumstances are different from Earth were we could buy anything we needed as long as we could pay. Securing the basic necessities comes before ammunition and missiles. It seems you battle freaks began fighting without a second thought once you ran into trouble, but war is a horrific thing once you run out of food and fuel.”

“…”

Mikoto and Shokuhou had gone blue in the face.

That was the most boring but hellish way of losing they could think of.

Mikoto shrugged.

“What were you trying to show us? The space for the captured fighters, or the water fuel plant?”

“Both.” The dorm manager sighed. “Think of it like a multi-course meal and wait patiently. The main dish has yet to be served.”

Part 3

They climbed a steep, narrow stairway to climb abovedeck once more.

“There is something else I wanted to show you,” began the dorm manager. “It is a piece of equipment we found already aboard the Izanagi, but not even we know how to use it.”

“Not even the grownup teachers?”

“Misaka, we are hoping your unfair ability to directly control electricity can shed some light on the mystery.”

Landing ships came in a variety of types, but the Izanagi didn’t appear to have a runway. That meant the top was cluttered rather than flat. It still seemed to have at least a heliport.

The dorm manager led them through a winding array of inner corridors. After passing by Watanabe-sensei on the way and exchanging “how do you do” greetings, they arrived at their destination.

An especially large bulkhead stood in their way.

Instead of opening it, they opened a smaller water-tight door to the side and entered through that.

“This is it,” said the dorm manager.

She needn’t have said so.

A bulky machine was stacked up in the center of the room. The stack was about 5m tall. Each individual part looked like a giant engine but wasn’t. An engine for a 10 thousand ton ship would be larger still and it wouldn’t just be situated above the deck like this.

Plus, you wouldn’t stick a bunch of engines together like this.

“At the same time…” said Mikoto, stunned.

Something like a plastic ruler was attached to the front.

It was a digital counter.

29:13:45:08

The red numbers were decreasing. The numbers 0-9 were formed from straight lines like on a cheap calculator and they were going down moment by moment.

The final number decremented once every second, so starting from the left, did the numbers represent days, hours, minutes, and seconds?

That meant less than 30 days remained.

What happened once they all reached zero?

Whatever the case, you would have to be pretty stupid to innocently ride around on a landing ship without noticing how suspicious this was…

“It wasn’t like this to start with,” quickly noted the dorm manager after noticing the two students’ gazes. “Specifically, the digital counter wasn’t there.”

“What do you mean?”

“At first, it was only a strange collection of machines. But we found the counter inside your carrier. We recognized the shape of the port, so we tried connecting it and the numbers appeared.”

“Does that mean the Izanami and Izanagi form a single giant device ability?” asked Shokuhou, sounding somewhat exasperated.

The dorm manager looked to Mikoto and jerked her chin toward the machine.

Was she supposed to use her power over electricity to figure out what the machine was?

She already had a very unpleasant idea.

“This isn’t just a self-destruct device, is it?”

“You don’t need to come out and state the obvious concern everyone is already thinking, Shokuhou. Not without real proof. That can wait until Misaka has gathered some actual information.”

The reprimand made the Queen scowl. Maybe it was a subconscious survival strategy, but Shokuhou Misaki had a tendency to mentally regress when around a grownup teacher. It was so weird seeing her like that.

Mikoto shut her eyes and held a hand out toward the machine.

She didn’t want to scatter sparks and blow the thing up while she was investigating, so she started carefully.

But the #3 frowned partway through.

“…? Just following the circuits in order, it doesn’t seem to have any explosives inside and it isn’t linked to the ship’s fuel tank.”

“You mean it isn’t a self-destruct device?” asked Shokuhou.

“But it does have a bunch of giant electromagnets. And they’re arranged in a torus.”

“Huh!? That sounds an awful lot like a tokamak fusion reactor that traps plasma at a temperature of about 100 million degrees!”

“It doesn’t have any nuclear materials. And if it was that, it would be shielded with lead. The details also aren’t right for a tokamak. That means it mus be meant to condense something else.” Mikoto sounded like she could hardly believe what she was saying. “Like a gravitational field.”

Even the dorm manager looked skeptical.

“You mean this is a miniature black hole?”

“More than that, it’s a smart black hole that can have its parameters controlled with external stimuli. Used temporally, it would work as a time machine. Used spatially, it would let you warp.”

But what about the digital counter?

Mikoto couldn’t be certain, but she had an answer.

“In 29 days, we will be sent somewhere. And that somewhere is almost certainly the Earth we left.”

“Got anything to back that up?” asked Shokuhou.

“No,” admitted Mikoto. “But if this device can send us to World A, World B, or World C, there would be no reason to send us from Earth to A and then on to C. It could have just sent us directly from Earth to C.”

“I see. So you’re saying World A – this world here – was the destination someone set for this thing? So this is the end point. Yet the device restarted after we arrived. Since they wouldn’t have a reason to send us from World A to Worlds B through Z, only one option remains.”

“Returning from the end point. In other words, a return trip from World A to Earth. That’s the only reason I can think of for the device to activate again in World A. …And since the digital counter exists, it must have already had a macro or program installed to do this.”

Shokuhou listened in silence, suggesting she had no argument.

Being sent back automatically sounded great.

However…

“Can you not fast-forward or rewind it?” asked Shokuhou.

“Nope. If you want to mess with it and produce a black hole outside the torus container, be my guest. The damage would go beyond this one planet, though.”

Mikoto shrugged.

…But this was weird. Where had the Izanami and Izanagi been built?

They had nothing in common with this world focused on Frozen Fossils and Girlish Weapons. And none of this had been in Academy City either.

Why had Mikoto and the others been brought into this? It must have happened intentionally. Someone somewhere had borrowed this super technology and even handed it over to them.

The dorm manager crossed her arms.

“So for the remaining 29 days, we must somehow get by in this world without anyone coming to harm.”

“That’s a much more realistic plan.”

“If only you hadn’t caused trouble and picked a fight with a world power.”

Tokiwadai’s Ace and Queen couldn’t look the dorm manager in the eye.

Could someone please let them know her weakness? Trembling, Mikoto tried to defend herself.

“They fired anti-ship missiles at us!”

“That is not the issue. You shouldn’t have established a hostile relationship, idiot. Dealing with an entire nation with only a carrier and landing ship will not be easy. Escaping them for nearly a month will require a bit of brainpower.”

“Is brainpower ability really enough to get through this?”

Shokuhou sounded exasperated, but it was the dorm manager who looked surprised.

“You can’t tell? I expected it from that idiot Misaka who runs headlong into every problem, but I thought you knew how to use your head, Shokuhou.”

“Gh, I’m not an idiot.”

“Yes, I really did think a Machiavellian idiot like Shokuhou would understand.”

“Who are you calling an idiot!?”

The scheming Queen snapped back on reflex and ended up with her wrist twisted around behind her back. That’s why you’re an idiot, idiot.

A call came over one of the small radios that were quickly becoming necessities.

“Queen, we are receiving an emergency signal.”

“Ow, ow, ow, ow. From who?”

“From the Liheilstaut Empire’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They provided a few forms of authentication over the radio, but we don’t know how this world works and have no way of knowing if they are legitimate. …They say they want to speak with our representative in order to negotiate for a ceasefire and peace regarding the accidental hostility between us.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance and the dorm manager shrugged.

They checked the time on their phones which weren’t good for much else while too far out at sea to pick up the signal from an antenna base.

10 AM.

Just about time for a government office to be opening.

Part 4

“Listen up!!”

The dorm manager’s voice rang loud through the Izanami’s large briefing room.

A map was displayed large on the wall behind her.

“The Liheilstaut Empire has contacted us to request peace talks. If these succeed, the danger to our lives and property will be eliminated and you can spend the rest of the time enjoying a summer break aboard a luxury cruise ship. We will be sending Shokuhou Misaki to their capital city of Frustburg as our representative, but just to be safe, we will also have Misaka’s 101 Squadron flying in the sky above their international meeting hall. The Empire has graciously given us permission to fly above their capital, but load your fighters with anti-ground armaments in addition to anti-air ones. We do not know how much we can trust the Empire. If this goes wrong, you will only have yourselves to rely on.”

Mikoto hesitantly raised a hand.

She was afraid of the answer to her question.

“Umm, how long will these peace talks last? I don’t think our fighters can continue flying from morning to night.”

“We plan to receive midair fueling from the Empire. That way there is no issue even if the talks get so heated they end up lasting 48 hours. Isn’t that right, Misaka?”

“Gwohhhh!” roared the #3, her head in her hands.

At her age, she badly wanted a simple kitchen and shower room in the fighter’s cockpit.

“Your purpose this time is diplomacy. This is a chance to use the manners and etiquette you have learned in your time as Tokiwadai students. Ladylike behavior shows its real value at a truly foreign party like this. Whether you will be appearing in public or not, this is an excellent opportunity for you to get a feel for real high society. Needless to say, anyone who shows insufficient courtesy or manners will be corrected afterwards. Do you understand the rules? Then it’s time to begin!”

The end of the briefing triggered a lot of bustling around.

As everyone stood from their chairs and departed, Shokuhou spoke to Mikoto from the side. With Hokaze Junko following behind her, the Queen brushed some long blonde hair off her shoulder in irritation.

“I will be borrowing Hokaze-san this time. I do want a reliable bodyguard with me.”

“Sure, whatever. They asked for this ceasefire, so I doubt you have anything to worry about.”

“My safety is worthless to you, isn’t it?”

Hearing how little thought Mikoto put into it, Shokuhou Misaki had to stare into the distance.

Really, she needed to think about what she had done in the past. She was lucky her own people weren’t going to blow her away and disguise it as an accident.

Mikoto shrugged.

“It’s the perfect job for you. You were voted Tokiwadai’s most likely to underestimate some low-level grunts only to get abducted and held captive as a damsel in distress.”

“My! Misaka-sama, when did they hold that delightful poll? If you had only told me, I would have gladly voted for my Queen!!”

“Completely worthless!?” shouted a bristling Shokuhou. At Hokaze, not Mikoto.

Admittedly, as someone about to visit the enemy capital, it probably wasn’t great to see your bodyguard’s eyes sparkling over the term “damsel in distress”.

(Knowing Hokaze-san, she’s getting excited over imagining herself rushing in to save her, not over the damsel in distress part itself.)

Basically, it was an expanded version of staring out the window during class and imagining what you would do if the school was taken over by armed terrorists. That girl really could kick butt in an emergency and she had the imagination to match.

With that, Mikoto parted ways with Shokuhou and Hokaze.

“That means I’ll only have Kuroko and YF-22A. Ugh, I’m going to have double twintails wingmates. Maybe I should do up my hair too…”

There were more non-girl F-2As, but Mikoto’s squadron was the only one really using them. The other girls had their hands full operating the carrier, so the piloting role had been shoved onto them.

After ascending into the abovedeck camouflage guest cabins, which still had plenty of empty rooms, Mikoto changed into her flight suit (she still wasn’t used to the thing) and then started back down toward the maintenance hangar which also contained the electromagnetic catapult.

She met up with Shirai Kuroko, who was also wearing a formfitting flight suit.

“Sigh.” Shirai’s shoulders drooped. “This place has been so stifling since the teachers arrived.”

“Tell me about it.”

“They make it so much harder to sneak into my precious Onee-sama’s room and to steal her underwear from the laundry room…”

“On second thought, we do need someone to preserve order.”

Mikoto expressionlessly stared into the distance as she pinched her underclassman’s cheek and zapped her. Now here was a pervert who would get excited over the damsel in distress part.

The salty sea scent was mixed with a hint of machine oil and exhaust smoke. That didn’t come from the clean nuclear-powered Izanami which didn’t produce any carbon dioxide.

They were near land.

The guest cabins structure had plenty of thick bulletproof glass to let the sunlight in, so they could see artificial structures on the horizon.

Their first glimpse of this world’s land was gray. From here, they could see a concrete harbor and a forest of skyscrapers beyond it. Based on this, there probably weren’t any wild elves or succubi there. Not too surprising when they’d heard this was a city of 10 million.

(But it’s a shame they don’t have any beaches for swimming. Then again, I bet Academy City wishes they could develop a coast like this.)

They had arrived at the Liheilstaut Empire’s capital city of Frustburg.

Or the sea next to it.

Instead of separating out the administrative functions like with Washington DC or Brasilia, this capital was also the most populous city like Tokyo or Paris.

They had already held the final briefing while the carrier was traveling here, but that had taken three days. Travel by ship was slow. Or was it weirder to be used to a fighter’s supersonic speed?

The countdown had just over 26 days left.

(If only we could spend the rest of the time out at sea, but I guess that wouldn’t work. We did already agree to this meeting date.)

This wasn’t going to be that easy.

Mikoto decided to focus on what she could do here. Ideally, that scheming Queen would be able to arrive at a ceasefire and peace agreement.

Once inside the belowdecks maintenance hangar, Mikoto spoke to the giant girl in a long-sleeved leotard.

“Hey, YF-22A. It’s time to risk our lives flying without any chance to rest.”

“My rights.”

Part 5

“Queen, the vehicle does not appear to be rigged with a bomb.”

“Good.”

After taking a motorboat from the Izanagi to the harbor, Shokuhou Misaki boarded a bulletproof car provided by the Empire. As the invited guest, she of course sat in the back.

Everything had a near future look.

Not that that meant much to Shokuhou since she was accustomed to Academy City. She had traveled all the way to another world and this was what she found? It felt like traveling overseas and then eating curry rice at a Japanese chain for your first meal.

“Wow.”

Next to her, Hokaze pressed her hands against the bulletproof glass and looked out. Nothing wrong with that sort of innocence, but Shokuhou really wished her bodyguard was paying attention to things inside the vehicle.

“Look, Queen. They have all sorts of things docked in the harbor.”

“Yes.”

“Is that an Aegis ship? And that’s a carrier. It makes sense they would have so many warships at their capital.”

…Of course, Hokaze wasn’t looking at steel ships. These were 100-200m bikini girls. They were all lined up and moored at a dock that appeared to be for both military and civilian use.

(They all look bored, so they must not be necessary for defense of the capital. Then are they only for show and they want people to see the warships here? Maybe the top brass are prideful and worried about appearances.)

The cruisers, destroyers, and other ships were in backstroke position, so their backs were hidden below the water, but they did appear to have the joints attached to their backs and hips and those were used to mount the ship-like weaponry to the outside edges of their arms. Their legs looked mechanical up to the base of their thighs. Their warship armor was attached to the sides of their bodies and the propellers on the soles of their shoes(?) were visible as they kicked their feet.

…There were also some submarine-looking girls moored out in the ocean. They were floating on their stomachs instead. Since they were meant to operate at the bottom of the ocean, they would have no trouble breathing underwater, but to Shokuhou it felt like viewing a crime scene. The way those plain girls were floating face down and motionless made them look an awful lot like giant drowned corpses.

I’m letting this influence me, thought Shokuhou.

Was it a good thing she was no longer questioning it?

A giant shape passed by even higher up than the glass-covered skyscrapers. What looked like a giant winged waitress was probably the air tanker provided by the Empire. A few girls that looked like fighters were circling slowly overhead, presumably to look out for aerial threats.

One was a little girl in a short-sleeve shirt and athletic bloomers plus yellow and black striped thigh highs. Wings thinner than the other fighters extended from the back of her hips. Perhaps so she could deal with fighters and attack aircraft, she had various sizes of missile hanging from those wings.

Another was a gloomy looking girl wearing a black raincoat over a bikini. She had a sturdy metal joint attached to the back of her neck and black metal wings that looked like a paper airplane lazily made out of polygons spread out from her ankles. The missiles and bombs were stored there. If necessary, she could drop or launch them from her sides.

(An F/A-18E and an F-117A, huh?)

“Queen, why do you look troubled?”

“No real reason. I’m just disturbed by how good I’ve gotten at identifying them.”

Was this due to inviting in a possible enemy representative, or was the military always involved in politics here? Armored trucks and anti-aircraft tanks were blocking off the streets and restricting traffic. Although those were giant girls with wheels or continuous tracks attached who sat on the ground and slowly stood up with their legs together. Maybe it was for a parade, but there were a lot of military band miniskirt uniforms visible on the surface.

“All of their trucks have such thin armor, Queen.”

“Did they leave out all the tanks 30 ton or heavier because the roads and bridges couldn’t support their weight?”

But more than anything, Shokuhou looked to the driver’s seat separated from her by thick glass.

This was the real new information here.

“Sure enough, the humans here aren’t all that big. Just the normal 150cm.”

The glass must have blocked out what Shokuhou was saying because the female driver dressed in black with sunglasses gave her a curious look in the rear-view mirror.

This car and all the others driving in the city were ordinary machines. Same for the motorcycles, the trains on the elevated tracks, and the non-military cruisers in the river. Apparently the giant girl technology was limited to military weapons.

It made sense that there would be ordinary vehicles to carry humans as well.

Yet those ordinary things felt weird after seeing nothing but the giant Girlish Weapons for so long. Humans were humans and weapons were weapons. This world had a clear distinction between the two species.

The female driver spoke through the speaker.

“We will soon be arriving at Omega Site, the international meeting hall. Please get ready.”

“Will do☆”

The black bulletproof car descended a slope into the parking lot.

A group of women in suits, looking like an army of secretaries, was waiting. They surrounded Shokuhou and guided her to the elevator.

She was guided all the way to the meeting hall. Inside she found a gorgeous elevator hall decorated with carpet and chandeliers, but something odd was displayed in the center.

A 3m piece of flesh frozen at less than -100 degrees.

Any possible movement had been stopped, but it was clearly alive.

That symbolized this world’s strangeness.

No one was in control of it. No one could control it. They had only frozen it because they didn’t know how to kill it, but they still felt like they had won. Because thinking about it any other way would worry them. Shokuhou figured all that out at a glance without having to use any psychometry.

What was it?

What should she call it?

She couldn’t even imagine what kind of life form it had originally belonged to. It had no eyes, mouth, hands, legs, skin, or fur. It was only flesh. No more than a mass of red, pink, and black. Was that the whole thing, or was it only a piece torn off from the whole? Even that was a mystery.

That her Tokiwadai knowledge couldn’t find an answer held great meaning in and of itself.

This really wasn’t Earth technology.

Shokuhou came to a stop and spoke quietly.

“A Frozen Fossil.”

“Yes, it must be,” agreed Hokaze, looking thoughtful.

“Unlike us humans, it apparently evolved from petroleum-eating microbes,” politely but coldly explained one of the secretaries guiding them. “Its muscle fibers produce far greater horsepower than ours and it has a strong affinity for machinery. But it has far too much power for safe use in the city, so the resultant technology cannot be adapted for civilian use. It was only natural that it would be managed by the military and used as Girlish Weapons.”

“I see…”

But.

This was how they saw it?

It was displayed in the center of all the carpet and chandeliers.

Shokuhou Misaki updated her understanding and correlation chart.

A secretary opened the door to the meeting room.

A small old man emerged. The chest of his fancy suit was decorated with a few medals, so was he a soldier rather than a politician?

“Hello, hello. So glad you are here. My, aren’t you a young representative. And beautiful too. Your talents must belie your appearance if you could break through the old traditions of military society with your gender and age. Please come in.”

He smiled broadly, but he didn’t even offer his own name. And his references to her appearance, her gender, and her age seemed calculated to rub her the wrong way. He scattered rudeness like a shotgun blast.

“…I am Shokuhou Misaki. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise. This way please.”

Still, he didn’t give his name.

He was only interested in doing things his way.

(I would be impressed if none of it was calculated.)

Unlikely, though.

A national leader who spoke more faux pas than quotable soundbites was unlikely to keep a position like this into old age. This was definitely all on purpose.

He was already testing her.

His tactic was to anger his opponent into revealing their true nature.

(Sigh. He probably thinks he’s the expert, but he’s no more clever than a sleazy tabloid reporter.)

But this was not about comparing each other as individuals and seeing who came out on top.

They were here to negotiate.

Reaching a compromise here would require work on both their parts.

Shokuhou didn’t want an idiot tripping her up.

A brilliant negotiator would be trouble in its own way, but a dull fool could also be a threat at the diplomatic negotiating table. The two might seem like polar opposites, but both could suddenly make devastating decisions that no ordinary person would ever even consider.

How would his foolish cheapness affect the negotiation for a ceasefire and peace?

Shokuhou could only hope he wasn’t too far below average.

She set foot inside the meeting room while regulating her breathing.

The real challenge was about to begin.

Part 6

“I’m so bored,” grumbled Misaka Mikoto.

She was flying at an altitude of 1200m. With all the capital’s skyscrapers, she couldn’t bring her Shinshin two-seat custom any lower without risking a collision. Mikoto wouldn’t fail to see a building wall up ahead…but she had heard planes sometimes hit lightning rods, support wires for antenna towers, and other long, skinny things. News helicopters and movie camera planes would often fly surprisingly close to buildings, but that meant there was a secret manual explaining everything one had to watch out for.

(But…)

She was stuck like this until the meeting on the surface ended.

She felt silly earnestly gripping the control column like this. Couldn’t she manage this with autopilot or something? Large passenger planes could manage flights of ten hours or more almost entirely on autopilot. And these days, she was wiling to bet even the landing at the airport could be automated if the weather was calm.

Mikoto’s eyes looked dead as she flew in a gently curving circle larger than a railroad belt line.

“So bored.”

“Onee-sama, could you please stop tempting fate?”

Why should I when Shokuhou’s the one at risk?

She would have said that out loud, but didn’t because she knew the (perverted but diligent) Judgment girl would make a fuss about it.

(But anyway…)

“Kyah! Yahh!”

“Ah ha ha ha! Coming through☆”

“Wait. You need to stay in formation and wait for our leader’s instruct- kyah!”

“My, my. 202 Squadron to 201 Squadron. There are a lot of people on the surface, so you need to shape up. That sloppy flying makes you look bad.”

Four F-14D school swimsuit catgirls made up 201 Squadron and four F-15C leggings mamas made up 202 Squadron.

Needless to say, these were the ones captured after Mikoto’s squadron shot them down.

Mikoto had a question.

(The F-14s were designed for use on carriers, but I didn’t think F-15s could take off from one.)

Yet, there they were in the air. Like it was nothing.

Attaching the carrier landing hook to the belly of the F-15Cs was one thing, but had Kongou Mitsuko also modified the power output of the electromagnetic catapult?

Also…

“Hm? Brat 04 to Railgun 01. Why do you look so suspicious?”

“Aren’t you Imperial aircraft? You’ve made it back to your capital, but did it not occur to you to escape us and go home?”

Some Imperial F/A-18Es (short-sleeve shirt, athletic bloomers, and striped thigh highs) and F-117A (bikini with black raincoat) were flying in the same big circle around the capital.

Did the captured ones not miss home?

But YF-22A’s response was simple.

“The IFF encryption update period has passed, so if we approached an airbase to land at a runway with our non-updated IFF signals, we would be treated like an unidentified aircraft. In the worst case, we could be shot down by a surface-to-air missile without warning. On the other hand, a noble aircraft such as myself couldn’t possibly land on a highway and trouble the Imperial citizens.”

“…”

Mikoto listened to the playful transmission coming from 201 and 202 Squadrons.

“Ah ha ha! Oh, Kitty 01. You’re acting all mad, but your swimsuit is running up in the back. Sexy!”

“Mhh. Kitty 03, stop staring at me from behind! I’m the squadron leader, so I’m the most important.”

“Oh, dear. I think it was too soon to let the F-14Ds form a squadron on their own. Mama 01 to 101 Squadron, don’t you think we should look after those children? Are you listening?”

…It sounded like it was more than just that.

They were even more carefree.

Was fighting on orders from humans just the ordinary state of affairs for them? So did they not care which side they were on as long as they could fight, or did they just lack any kind of national identity or patriotism toward the country or military created by the humans, who were another species entirely? Just like humans could walk through the neighborhood without considering the territories established by the local dogs and cats.

And while they flew in a big circle above the capital, something else joined them from an even larger circle.

It was a giant busty waitress. The 40m young woman was smiling sweetly.

She was a KC-135 air tanker.

The size of the wings spreading from her back were unthinkable for a fighter. The round aircraft fuselage…or rather, the fuel tank was held under her right arm like a surfboard. Of course, to a Girlish Weapon, that was part of her body, so it appeared to be attached to the joint on the side of her hip.

She had a mole just below one eye.

“Party Girl 00 to visitors. Hello, everyone, it’s refueling time. Please follow my instructions and wait your turn.”

“We’re supposed to fly up within a few meters below her? Really?”

Her miniskirt was flapping in the wind and her unnecessary large breasts created some extra obstacles on the downward-facing side. Even if they had to be girls for some reason, why did they have to design her to be so curvy? That just made this more dangerous!

While Mikoto hesitated to approach, a transmission arrived.

“Um, Kitty 03 to Big Sis. Can we go first?”

“F-feel free.”

But the F-14D girl appeared to find this normal. When Mikoto gave up her spot in the queue, the school swimsuit catgirls began flying around and fighting over spots.

“Yay, time to fuel up! Gulp, gulp.”

“Ahh! She said to wait our turn, Kitty 03! No fair!”

They were still being playful.

The F-15C leggings mamas showed no sign of stopping them. That meant this was safe. All those obstacles made it look terribly dangerous, but that was apparently just how they refueled.

Mikoto spoke under her breath.

“Oh, they aren’t drinking jet fuel from a baby bottle and she isn’t extending her flying boom from between her legs to act as a straw. That’s a relief.”

“?”

The KC-135 busty miniskirt waitress tilted her head.

Interesting.

Mikoto’s imagination had been too powerful for the residents of this world to understand. Had she been influenced by Kuroko there?

“Onee-sama, you can’t blame everything on me. That one was on you.”

Once the F-14Ds were done refueling, Mikoto sent a request and followed the tanker’s instructions by slowly slipping in directly below it.

“Party Girl 00 to, um, Railgun 01? What a strange shape for a fighter. It doesn’t even have a butt or boobs. Yes, keep going and…stop. Right there.”

Mikoto knew this was just how it worked and it was safe, but she was still nervous reaching for the button to open the fuel tank port mid-flight.

“Yes, I see you’ve opened up for me. I will now insert my thick thing inside you. Don’t worry. Just let me do my thing and it’ll be over before you know it.”

Mikoto heard a deep metallic clunk as she maintained her fighter’s attitude.

The waitress’s flying boom had connected to her fuel tank port.

The meter’s number rapidly recovered. While she waited for the work to complete, Mikoto took a look at the city below. Then again, she couldn’t see directly below with the fighter’s long nose in the way.

(Mh. Does that mean I need to aim the nose toward the ground whenever I want to see directly below? I should’ve had Kongou-san attach a ground observation camera or something.)

It was no comparison to a map app, but she could see quite a bit from this altitude.

She could see past the harbor to where the Izanami and Izanagi were waiting out at sea.

She could see the international meeting hall located a bit north, and thus inland, of the capital.

She could see that the distance from the international meeting hall to the harbor was about 10km as the bird flies.

And she could see a conspicuous group of black vehicles.

“…”

Those black vehicles were arriving from different highways and all gathering on the international meeting hall. After the infantry fighting vehicles or anti-aircraft tanks let them pass, they moved to blockade the roads again.

“Party Girl 00 to Railgun 01, refueling complete. Once you close your tank port, lower your speed and then safely fly out from under me. Once I have full visual confirmation of your position, yaw 45 degrees to the right and fly off. I look forward to your next visit☆”

Mikoto heard another metallic sound. The tanker’s flying boom must have been removed now that the refueling was complete.

Mikoto adjusted her grip on the control column.

And muttered to herself.

“Hm.”

Part 7

“And so I believe I have proven that the conflict between our forces was an accidental battle caused by a combination of misunderstanding and misfortune and we had no intention of attacking you. Any questions?”

The meeting room was large.

Both the area of the floor and the height of the roof were far greater than a school auditorium.

It contained about 500 seats arranged in concentric circles like tree rings and it was designed so all participants could be seated at the same level without implying any seat in a circle was superior to another. Of course, the only people allowed a seat in here were national representatives.

Although not a shred of that original concept appeared to remain.

Shokuhou sighed softly.

(Good grief.)

Calling it a “flowing speech” might sound nice, but the old man hadn’t raised his head even once. He simply read through a paper manuscript. And he never once paused, leaving Shokuhou no chance to get a word in edgewise.

And now he was asking for questions?

Did he really think they had a mutual understanding here?

It was so obvious. Even Hokaze appeared to have noticed where this was heading. She bent over and whispered in Shokuhou’s ear.

“…Queen.”

“Don’t worry.”

Shokuhou Misaki poked at the thick stack of paper in front of her. It looked like he had chosen intentionally complicated phrasings and gone back and forth on every little detail to increase the word count well beyond reason, but the Queen was no fool and she hadn’t let that camouflage hide the main points from her.

“Care to explain Article 45 Paragraph 1 where you say the Empire will handle maintenance of all weapons in our possession?”

“Even though you have no need of your armaments, maintaining them still requires money and personnel, right? We are offering to remove that burden from your shoulders.”

In other words, he was asking them to disarm and surrender.

“In Article 19’s special note, you say we must disembark the Izanami and the Izanagi?”

“You will feel cramped spending all your time on a rocking ship, won’t you? You are national guests with no embassy or consulate, so we invite you to stay at an official Imperial residence.”

In other words, he was asking them to gather together and be placed under house arrest where the Imperial military could monitor them.

“In Article 31 Paragraph 4, you say we will receive ‘legal privileges’ during our stay in the Empire?”

“You have come from outside, but you do not have an embassy or consulate protected by international treaty. If you will stay at our official residence, you will be protected under Liheilstaut Empire law.”

In other words, he was setting them up to be tried in a secret trial and either indefinitely imprisoned or even executed.

“Sigh.”

Shokuhou had to consider that countdown. 26 days remained. If they didn’t defend the Izanami and Izanagi, they would lose their chance to return to Earth.

So disarmament and a forced disembarking were out of the question. Not to mention a series of secret trials leading to the death penalty.

Of course, opening up about the gravity field and mini black hole would probably only get the Empire interested in the mysterious return device.

(Anyway.)

“It’s so blatant. Are you even trying to hold a serious dialogue here?”

“You can tell?” The old man no longer tried to hide it. “This discussion never meant anything. Our glorious Empire would never compromise with some puny armed fleet. All we needed was an excuse to lure that foolish group’s leader into our grasp. Whoever that leader might be, we knew this would be much easier once your brain had been dealt with!!”

Every door leading into the meeting hall burst open.

Without warning.

They were armed with .45 caliber submachine guns. Deafening gunfire opened up from all sides sand Hokaze Junko leaped on top of Shokuhou. Without hesitation.

“…?”

But then the ringlets girl frowned in confusion.

Not a single bullet had flown her way.

Despite the excessive amount of gunfire.

The special commandos fully equipped with bulletproof jackets and helmets were standing stock still. None of them questioned that they had just diverted their line of fire clockwise by 15 degrees and sprayed their bullets into empty space.

Something more frightening than lead bullets ruled this battlefield.

It hadn’t even taken 5 seconds from their entry.

While enemy and ally watched on in awe, Shokuhou Misaki (knocked to the floor by Hokaze) kissed the tip of her TV remote.

She was Academy City’s #5.

Mental Out.

“Now do you understand?”

Part 8

Things on the surface didn’t look right.

Once all their aircraft had been refueled, Mikoto sent a transmission.

“Railgun 01 to all squadrons. The layout of surface vehicles looks strange… Based on the position of the armored vehicle girls, it looks like they’re blockading the roads leading away from the international meeting hall. Just to be safe, prepare for anti-surface attack suppo-”

“Misaka-saaan!! As I suspected, the negotiations fell through. I’m about to steal a car and escape to the harbor, so I’d love some air support ability!!”

The request arrived before they could make their preparations.

Mikoto frowned.

But not at the Empire’s actions.

“Are you really in middle school? Since when do you know how to drive? Are you sure you aren’t actually some old wom-”

“I don’t want to hear that from the girl holding a control column. I’m obviously going to brainwash an Imperial driver, so don’t you dare call me an old woman. I also managed to snag a chicken in the confusion, so we can replenish our eggs!”

Some kind of commotion was underway.

Specifically, a black bulletproof car shot out from the international meeting hall’s underground parking garage, flying off the slope like it was a ramp. It broke through the makeshift barricade and swerved out onto the main street. Anti-aircraft tanks (girls in gaudy military band uniforms) aimed an autocannon per hand at the car while blocking the road from nearby. They fired. But before the line of bullets could reach it, the car took a turn and used a building as a shield.

“Oh, she’s up on the surface!!”

Misaka Mikoto yanked her control column over to roll and then made a rapid turn.

If Shokuhou were alone, she might have made her wait as payback for so very much, but Hokaze was with her as a bodyguard.

“Damn, she’s using the same move I did. Is this what you call just deserts?”

“?”

Shokuhou was blissfully ignorant.

Before the anti-aircraft tanks could do anything more, Mikoto silenced them with some destructive autocannon fire from the sky. Then she twisted her fighter around to rapidly pursue Shokuhou’s fleeing car.

(The 1200m limit is over now. If I don’t descend between the buildings, the building winds and heat island updrafts will scatter my autocannon fire and possibly hit some civilians!!)

“Wow, that was a close one.”

“Kyah! Wait for me, Big Sis!”

The F-14Ds innocently followed her down.

“God, doesn’t it scare you to have some brainwashed driver at the wheel?” asked Mikoto.

“How is this any different from a self-driving car?” replied Shokuhou.

Meanwhile, the situation on the surface was changing.

And not in a good way.

Shirai’s panicked voiced arrived over the radio.

“Onee-sama, are you keeping track?”

“Um, well…”

Shokuhou had brainwashed an Imperial soldier and escaped in a stolen car, so she was in the same kind of bulletproof car driven by the enemy.

So while Mikoto could target the enemy with air-to-surface missiles, they would lock onto all of the Imperial vehicles. The IFF wouldn’t automatically distinguish between friend and foe.

…Which car was Shokuhou in again?

“Oh, hey, wait.”

The cars were approaching the kind of exceptionally complicated five-way intersection found in big cities.

The black bulletproof cars coming from different streets mixed together and shuffled themselves with some sharp drifting.

And Mikoto had the bad luck of some glare reflecting off a glass-covered skyscraper dazzling her vision in that moment.

Did it last 1 second? Not more than 2 seconds, she was fairly certain.

But now those black vehicles were all mixed together on the surface. Her eyes widened.

“Which one…is which!?”

“Try to pay attention!! Ugh, fine. I’ll give you a signal. I’ll shine a strobe light from my phone in the back seat, so look for that!!”

The car with a flashing light inside the bulletproof window was Shokuhou’s.

That let Mikoto tell them apart, but this might not last forever. For one, the strobe light used power. Mikoto just had to pray the phone’s battery didn’t die and that the Empire didn’t notice the regularity of the light and mimic it.

Then the row of thick bollards blocking off the entrance to a park was squashed like aluminum cans as something slowly emerged.

An infantry fighting vehicle.

Which looked like a giant military band girl.

The undercarriage (of her legs) had eight wheels, but she was also equipped with (by holding it in her right hand) the same big gun as a tank. A second before she could accurately target the bulletproof car with lasers and microwaves, Mikoto’s Shinshin dropped an air-to-surface missile with the force of a lightning strike.

It exploded.

“Hey!?” protested Shokuhou. “This car is rattling at a really high pitch and some of the armor was stripped away!!”

“What did you say? I can’t hear you over the static!? What was that about a high bitch? Finally come to terms with what you are?”

“Gyaohhhhhh!!”

Mikoto frowned at Shokuhou’s sudden roar over the radio.

“Just trust the specs of the stolen car, Shokuhou. If I hadn’t launched that missile, you and the car would’ve been flipped over by a 120mm cannon!!”

A few explosions and dust clouds formed out ahead.

Mikoto and the other fighters weren’t responsible.

The Empire was detonating their own bridges to cut off any escape route to the harbor. They apparently didn’t care that they were blowing up the people’s tax money.

“You need a new route!! You can’t trust any of the bridges. If you turn east, the river passes underground as a culvert, so you should be able to cross it there!”

That detour would give Shokuhou a viable route, but it would of course take time.

“By the way, Queen, when did you realize the Empire wasn’t to be trusted?”

“Right from the start. The F/A-18Es and F-117As flying overhead are both Girlish Weapons designed for air combat and ground attacks. For the stealth fighters, the air-to-air missiles are add-ons, not standard equipment. With their default equipment, they don’t even have a radar. So those were meant to ensure we can’t escape, not to patrol the skies.”

“Wow, nothing gets past you, Queen.”

(Why does she sound so smug about this? What’s so smart about soaking in the middle of a trap like it’s a hot spring?)

Mikoto sighed in exasperation.

But this was relevant to her situation. The F/A-18Es and F-117As meant there were enemies in the sky too.

“Railgun 01 to all squadrons. Watch out for the F-117As. They’re stealth fighters, so don’t rely too much on radar or you’ll miss them!!”

If she and the others focused too much on the ground, they could get shot down.

But…

“Brat 04 to Railgun 01, are you sure you want to start an air battle above a densely populated city!?”

“…”

Yes, defeating the enemy here would be easy enough, but hitting the enemy with a missile did not make their mass just disappear. And this was a city of 10 million. How many people would be harmed if a mass of a few dozen tons (that happened to be shaped like a giant girl) broke apart and fell into the city from an altitude where a single screw or nail could be deadly?

If they did nothing, they would be killed.

But if they acted without thinking, they would end up being killers themselves.

(What do we do!?)

Part 9

This was playing out as expected.

The Imperial Air Force’s F/A-18E smirked as she pursued the strange white aircraft. The enemy was unwilling to begin fighting above a city, so they were forced to focus on defense.

That prevented them from protecting the runaway car rushing toward the sea, but…

“Hm?”

Something drew her attention.

It wasn’t just the one.

There were around a dozen fleeing aircraft in all, but they had all scattered something behind them.

It looked like confetti but wasn’t. The substance reflecting the sunlight to glitter bright was in fact pieces of aluminum foil.

Was that all supposed to be chaff?

Chaff was emergency evasive equipment meant to help you escape from a radar-guided missile. It reflected the guidance signal to obstruct it.

The F/A-18E short-sleeve shirt and athletic bloomers girls and the F-117A bikini and raincoat girls had been ordered to perform a precision bombing of the city. They belonged to Imperial military. They needed to attack Shokuhou’s fleeing car, but they could not afford to have one of their guided missiles mistakenly blow away part of the capital.

(I don’t know how well that would actually confuse the guidance, but we can’t act until we check.)

However.

The F-117A, an early stealth fighter, spoke in a whisper.

“Shadow 01 to Toxin 01. Wh-what…do we do?”

“The aircraft are our top priority. The car is slow, so we can worry about it later. First, let’s shut off the tap on that chaff.”

Chaff was only a temporary evasive measure. Even when scattered at maximum density, the odds of it fooling a radar-guided missile were only about 50/50.

“My signal is reaching you, right? A minute after they stop scattering that stuff, the interference will fully clear. So we’ll have plenty of time to target that car once we shut off the tap and the radar clears!”

“Toxin 02 to 01. We’re going to attack them above the city?”

“They outnumber us, so we either shoot them down when we can, or they’ll shoot us down. If we say they attacked first, then we can blame them if anyone ends up getting hurt.”

The enemy’s white stealth fighter was juking side to side, but it wasn’t willing to make a counterattack, which made it a sitting duck.

The F/A-18E placed the cursor box over the fighter like the facial recognition box on a camera app and the lock on seeker began to pursue it. Once the two aligned, they lock would be complete. After dumping all that chaff, the enemy probably had no way to avoid a missile.

The F/A-18E’s young face displayed the sadism of someone tormenting a stranger.

“Hee hee hee, heh heh heh. C’mon, c’mon. If you don’t hurry up, I’ll fire this missile!!”

Then the giant girl frowned.

Because of her nose.

She smelled sea salt.

She had passed the concrete boundary line.

Which meant she was past the harbor and fully outside Frustburg.

Over the sea.

“Ah.”

The F-2A and YF-22A following her both launched missiles that instantly shot her down.

Mikoto breathed a long sigh after using her Shinshin as bait.

The plan had worked.

After being “lucky” enough to visually detect the Shinshin despite its high stealth capabilities keeping it off radar, the enemy would of course want to make sure to attack and shoot it down before losing sight of it.

Once the enemy group had been lured out over the ocean, there was nothing to stop Mikoto’s group.

(This is our one and only chance! We can’t let them get back over the city!!)

Mikoto’s Shinshin turned sharply around. It directed its nose toward the F/A-18Es and F-117As that had been leisurely following after it.

From head on.

Given their relative speed, they would pass each other in an instant.

But Mikoto launched two missiles and fired her autocannon.

After a short delay, multiple explosions erupted behind her.

“Railgun 01, three down!!”

“Brat 04, one down for me.”

“I missed.”

“Leave it to me, Teleport 02. I’ll finish them off!”

While flying a crescent moon style evasive maneuver to escape an air-to-air missile, it was hard to rapidly switch to a new direction. Mikoto locked on and shot down the F-117A while it was restricted by its powerful inertial gs.

This all took less than two minutes. But the chaff scattered over the city would have already been swept away by the wind.

The enemy fighters were gone, but clearing the sky wasn’t enough.

This was all meaningless if they couldn’t get Shokuhou and Hokaze back aboard the motorboat that would carry them back to the camouflaged carrier and landing ship.

Mikoto made a sharp turn back toward the city.

Multiple black bulletproof cars were approaching the harbor.

“Railgun 01 to all squadrons, prepare for ground attack. Any car without a strobe light in the back seat is hostile. Commence attack!!”

Part 10

Somehow they had survived.

Once the aircraft were retrieved, Camouflaged Carrier Izanami and Landing Ship Izanagi departed.

The Imperial warships did not immediately fire on them. They must have truly only been for show and weren’t prepared for immediate action.

But Mikoto and the rest had to beat a quick retreat. The Empire had never intended to agree to a ceasefire and this entire battle had been a waste of effort.

26 days remained.

That limit couldn’t be fast-forwarded or rewound. If they didn’t consider how they would survive until then, their ships would be sunk before they could return to Earth.

But…

“Phew.”

Looks like we can finally begin our counterattack.”

“Why are you the only one here who looks remotely satisfied, schemer? Read the room. Don’t you get our situation here?”

“Misaka-saaan. I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand our situation. This is another world, which means Academy City and its esper development doesn’t exist here.”

“?”

Mikoto was about to ask why that mattered, but the Queen smiled darkly.

“That means they don’t know espers exist and won’t have any countermeasures in place to stop them. Now, Misaka-san, care to remind me what my power is?”

“Don’t tell me…”

Level 5 Mental Out.

The strongest psychological esper.

Even if it was to catch her in a trap, the Empire had badly miscalculated in appearing before that monster in person.

(Was this what the dorm manager meant by using our heads?)

That glasses woman loved to act like a responsible adult, but apparently she was as much a schemer as the Queen.

Shokuhou Misaki grinned.

“All the damn soldiers invited to that international meeting hall were the top brass at the center of their military, so I thought I would start by giving us a foothold there. Of course, if I have them act too strangely or stupidly, they’ll be kicked out, but if I play my cards right, I might just be able to cause that massive empire to collapse from within☆”

Depth 5: Disaster Rescue

Part 1

Q1. What do we do now?

A boutique in the Izanami’s cruise ship area had swimsuits. As well as swim rings and rubber boats. Mikoto took a liking to a bright pink one-piece swimsuit with a lot of frills. The frills were the best part. Because they obscured the small size of her chest. And so Misaka Mikoto was floating face up in the pool, lost in thought.

It was night.

The dark sky plus the night pool’s underwater lighting created a super grown up atmosphere.

“We could fight the Empire and win. We have our own Shinshin and F-2As plus the captured Girlish Weapons: YF-22A, four F-14Ds, four F-15Cs, three F/A-18Es, and three F-117As. With that much at our disposal…”

“You’re just being silly now. All that isn’t enough to fill a single ordinary carrier. How many warship girls did we see on standby at their capital’s harbor? If they send those after us, we’re done. They would overwhelm us with numbers ability.”

Shokuhou Misaki had also changed into a swimsuit and was floating in the same pool. Hers was all thin strings and looked more like something you would be forced to wear after losing a bet. She was lying face down on a rectangular air mattress floating in the water. While kicking her feet.

Why even bother changing into a swimsuit and visiting the pool if you weren’t going to let a single drop of water touch you?

(Also…)

A normal carrier, huh?

The Izanami had a lot of its space taken up by the unnecessary decorations making it a “camouflaged” carrier, but the bigger problem was that the Tokiwadai students numbered less than 200. A normal carrier would have a crew of thousands.

They had a fair number of the (non-girl) F-2As, but they were hopelessly short on pilots. Even with so much handled electronically, it was honestly something of a miracle they could run the carrier with less than 200, so they just didn’t have people to spare on the fighters.

Mikoto kicked some water into the air as she floated on her back.

“We can stay away from the continent and travel by sea as much as possible. We can produce water fuel, vegetables, and even chicken eggs, so we don’t need to return to land. Once we’re out of flight range for fighters loaded with anti-ship missiles, we’ll be safe. In this case, heading as far south as possible might be best.”

“That is better than all-out war, but I don’t think it will be that easy. The flight range is a meaningless calculation. Our ships can’t outrun them if they send a strategic bomber built for long-range attacks across national borders and to the other side of the continent.”

They had held this discussion a few times already.

And they still hadn’t arrived at an answer.

(Even with the top brass brainwashed,) they had already lost the best option of a ceasefire and peace with the Empire. That meant going for the next best option, but did that mean fighting or running? Could they escape if they kept moving, or could they hide somewhere and go unnoticed?

26 days remained.

They still hadn’t decided on a general plan, so for now they were just getting the ships away from the continent.

However, if the Empire had an airbase on a remote island like Ascension Island​ in the Atlantic Ocean, they could be cruising right up to an enemy nest. Mikoto and the others did not have a complete grasp of this world’s map or power balance.

“Still, at least they didn’t launch a bunch of nuclear ballistic missiles our way. If they had made a nuclear attack as soon as we were far enough away from the continent, this all would’ve been over.”

“They really aren’t going to do that, right?”

“I did spy on all the residual thoughts left in the international meeting hall, which is full of plotting day in and day out☆” The #5 winked while squashing her boobs between herself and the air mattress. “Apparently the three major powers have agreed to something called the Triangle Pact. To prevent an accidental nuclear war, they have made it so at least two countries need to input a launch code to launch any of their ballistic missiles, nuclear or otherwise. Of course, if one country gets pissed and suggests using them, the discussions will fall into chaos and they’ll never reach an agreement, so the pact effectively prevents any nuclear warheads or missiles from ever being used no matter how many they’ve made.”

So if one of the major powers began a destructive rampage, the other two could then instantly crush them.

Mikoto was honestly impressed by that. It was a far more peaceful way of putting a lock on nukes than the sloppy management of Earth’s mutually assured destruction. She wished the UN’s VIPs could learn a thing or two from this way of including the disagreements between major powers in the calculations for keeping the peace.

So…

“That means we don’t have to worry about any nuclear ICBM attacks.”

“Of course, that isn’t the only threat.” Shokuhou brushed back her long blonde hair as she lay on the floating air mattress. “If only we could speed up the countdown on that device aboard the Izanagi.”

“Or remove it from its pedestal and carry it around with us. The Izanami and Izanagi are too big for us to buy time with a game of hide-and-seek.”

That said, the return device(?) probably required power from the giant ship to function. They didn’t want to remove it and restart it only to find the countdown had reverted to the beginning.

But anyway…

“The biggest threat for now would be a strategic bomber that can fly more than 10 thousand kilometers.”

“Probably so,” said Shokuhou.

“Especially a stealth one. The ships’ early-warning radar could miss its approach, so our only option is to keep a few planes in the air on shifts.”

Part 2

Letting their extra strength soak off into the pool naturally made them sleepy.

But when Kongou Mitsuko came crying over the radio, Mikoto visited the Izanami’s maintenance hangar and found the giant fighter girls were arguing.

The disagreement appeared to be between an F-14D and an F/A-18E they had captured after the battle at the Imperial capital.

A giant school swimsuit girl and athletic bloomers girl were grappling.

What were they doing here instead of using the crane to return to the landing ship?

“How could you start dogfighting above the densely-populated capital!? You’re nothing but a coward who doesn’t care about the people’s lives, Toxin 01!”

“No, that was the best option at that time. I don’t care what you or anyone else says, Kitty 01. I did nothing wrong.”

“Have you no shame!?”

“Kitty 04 to squadron. Let’s teach her a lesson by pressing her bare boobs against the glass wall!!”

“Hey, hey, hey!! shouted Mikoto, trying to interrupt, but the fighters did not stop yanking at each other’s hair and clothes. While they looked like cute girls, they were around 20m tall, so she was decently afraid of being trampled. …Also, the F-14D with the call sign Kitty 04 appeared to have been secretly watching late-night dramas and had learned some indecent things from it.

While the Girlish Weapons didn’t seem to mind switching sides in a fight, did they generally agree on trying to protect people’s lives? They were fighting pretty fiercely here, but they weren’t firing any bullets. Perhaps they didn’t want any stray shots or ricocheting bullets to hit Wannai, Awatsuki, and the other girls watching nervously on in the maintenance hangar. They probably would have been shooting otherwise.

The F-14D kept yelling even after she was pulled away.

“You need to learn your lesson!! If you don’t, you’re not getting any more water fuel!!”

“Ugh… You want me to go hungry? Wahhhhhhh!!”

“Oh, Kitty 01 made Toxin 01 cry.”

“How could she!?”

“Wait, you mean I’m the bad guy here!?”

(Are they simple and easy to use, or does this just make them more dangerous? I can’t decide.)

They were seriously resolving their argument with food?

Mikoto sighed in exasperation.

And…

“…”

A short distance away, YF-22A was watching the commotion in silence.

She felt a disturbance in her chest.

The F/A-18E probably did deserve criticism for beginning a battle over a city on her own discretion, but it was the nature of the Liheilstaut Empire that had planted that way of thinking inside her.

She understood that the plan had been to lure Shokuhou Misaki, the Tokiwadai group’s leader, away from the rest and restrain her…but why do that in the densely-populated capital?

Maybe you could say that detail helped deceive Shokuhou.

And in fact, the term “capital” didn’t have much strategic value outside of the country’s pride.

The people didn’t seem to recognize what it meant, but the Liheilstaut Empire had already distributed its ministries and other administrative functions to other important cities so that the Empire could continue on just fine even if it was decapitated.

In an emergency, the leaders of the country could move their base of operations elsewhere. Preparing a second or third home base (in secret) in case of invasion of bombing was not all that unusual.

That may have been why they were willing to risk their capital for a single operation.

But.

Could they not calculate how many people would be harmed in the process? Had they really balanced that negative against the positive of fooling Shokuhou?

What was the point of the military and of a weapon if they couldn’t protect all the unarmed people?

“…”

Part 3

The next three days passed without incident.

23 days remained.

“It’s so hot…”

“Onee-sama, do not undo all the velcro on your flight suit. It is indecent. And stop flapping the stomach slit.”

Yeah, but she was on standby with nothing to do and the sun was beating down on her. It was nice the formfitting suit would prevent sunburn, but it did nothing about the heat.

She was willing to bet she could fry an egg on the landing runway.

The flight suit was designed to protect her even if she was dumped out at high altitude with a parachute, so it was mostly meant for cold temperatures. She could fasten all the velcro then, but the problem was in the heat.

“Ugh…”

The slits had seemed silly at first, but she had discovered just how necessary they were. Without that kind of ventilation, this heat would kill her.

Keeping that formfitting suit sealed tight would leave her drenched in sweat and possibly even with sweat rashes.

Oh, how wonderful was the power of air.

“So 23 days left now,” said Mikoto, still fanning herself.

They were looking at more than three weeks left of pursuit by the three major powers, so they couldn’t relax yet. Even if the past three days had been uneventful.

It was on that third day that something happened.

However, that something was not the arrival of a Liheilstaut Empire strategic bomber or being caught by a submarine packed full of torpedoes.

“Senpai, you said you wanted to discuss the weather map?”

Mikoto stepped into the windowless CIC.

Kobayashi, who was normally staring at the early-warning radar screen, swiveled her chair around.

“Yes, there was something I wanted to discuss with you personally since it will probably influence what happens next.”

She displayed a simple map based on what they knew of this world’s geography and overlaid it with the isobars and weather front lines that resembled distorted stumps. Those things usually seen at the start of the weather forecast.

Any Tokiwadai student would know how to interpret it.

“What…is that?”

“A massive cumulonimbus cloud. And it isn’t alone. Several of them are linked together. It may be a fairly unique linear rainband.”

They had no way of knowing if that was normal in this world, or if this qualified as unusual weather.

Moisture changed the reflection rate of radar waves, so they could be used to measure the cloud thickness and precipitation amounts.

Switching to a display of rainfall amounts created a screen full of red.

“It’s only an estimate, but this shows more than 200mm a day. That’s equivalent to a massive typhoon. And instead of passing through quickly, it could continue for days on end unless the band of clouds shifts.”

That sounded like a natural disaster.

Not even a sturdy military weapon would be unaffected by a weather change on that level.

This was indeed important information.

But.

Mikoto hadn’t known anything about it until she arrived in the CIC. Not even that it was raining. In fact, up in the cruise ship section of the Izanami, quite a few of the girls were casually lying around in swimsuits getting a tan (while the dorm manager wasn’t looking, of course).

Also…

“Is this divine punishment?”

“Could be.”

“As soon as we leave the continent, the Liheilstaut Empire has to deal with this. I guess god really is doing his job. Nothing gets past him.”

Not that Mikoto knew much about god. She had grown up in a city of science, after all.

Mikoto had a vague image of some white-haired and bearded old man standing a cotton candy cloud and holding a knotted staff.

“But I don’t think they have time to sit around and talk about it,” said Kobayashi, switching the radio to a civilian frequency.

Was the broadcast station incredible for reaching this far out at sea, or was the Izanami’s equipment incredible for accurately picking up such a weak signal?

Either way, the radio broadcast had ended its ordinary programming for some emergency news.

“If you live in Dorgionix, you need to evacuate to higher ground immediately! I repeat, the Imperial Ministry of Environmental Development has announced that the Slendard Dam’s water level has exceeded 98% and is rapidly reaching its limit. You are not safe even if you aren’t near the rivers! The dam could break at any moment!! Please check on your neighbors and work together to evacuate to higher ground by car or whatever means available to you! I repeat!!”

The announcer was shouting far louder than was usually considered appropriate.

That showed just how serious it was.

“What is Dorgionix?”

“The Empire’s second largest city. It has a population of more than 9 million. It is an industrial city built with reclaimed land in a fan shape alongside the sea, which means it is almost entirely flat.”

“…”

That meant it would be engulfed.

There was no saving it if the dam broke.

“The radio is telling them to evacuate to higher ground, but if a population that size makes a rush for the narrow and winding mountain roads, congestion is unavoidable. Most of them won’t make it.”

“But it’s their second largest city, right? Surely they have a lot of skyscrapers like the capital did.”

“Apparently they considered the image of a jumbled industrial city to be humiliating, so Dorgionix has strict landscape preservation rules. Including a limit on the height of all structures. If the gravity dam – said to be the Empire’s largest – breaks, I doubt any of the city will survive.”

…Oh.

Mikoto understood the gravity of the situation now.

But…

“Why did you want the advice of a pilot like me? Even if we ignored the risk and brought the Izanami to the coast, we can’t carry 9 million people, can we?”

“Rescuing them by sea would be a challenge. We can’t hold them all and there isn’t time. So I was hoping you could do something by air, Misaka-sama.”

“Such as?”

Asking that so quickly was as good as saying she was willing to help.

Kobayashi smiled a little.

She zoomed in on the map and surrounded a few points with red circles. They were each located alongside the rivers branching through the mountains.

“Based on the military and civilian radio signals coming in, they appear to be starting an emergency release of water from the Slendard Dam, but too much water is flowing into the dam from multiple rivers and the water level keeps rising.”

“But a fighter can’t change the weather. Unless you have a meteorological weapon in your back pocket I could use to scatter the rain clouds.”

“There is something you can do. The dam’s water level is rising both because of the rain and because the smaller floodgates elsewhere are malfunctioning. I would guess they were bent by the unexpected pressure caused by the extreme increase in water. The remote signals from central control won’t open them.”

“So if those smaller floodgates could be forced opened somehow…?”

“The water would be distributed through the different rivers and the gravity dam wouldn’t break. If the emergency release of water is greater than the amount coming in, the dam’s water level will fall.”

The current water level was above 98%.

There wasn’t much time.

But what if there was a way to fly at supersonic speed and launch air-to-surface missiles pinpoint targeting the floodgates?

“It’s not too late… Okay, I’ll head to the maintenance hangar and warm up the Shinshin’s engine! Kobayashi-san, you get the necessary authorization and whatever needed to send me out!!”

“It will be risky. The Izanami is already far out at sea, so you will barely have enough fuel for a round trip even when loaded with an extra tank that sacrifices your stealth. When the Empire notices your approach, they will surely scramble interceptors. Since you need to make a return trip, you cannot waste any fuel, which will make it a tricky battle.”

“That’s not what matters!!”

Mikoto didn’t even need to think about it.

But just as she was preparing to run out of the CIC, she found someone else standing in the exit.

It was Shokuhou Misaki.

“No.”

“Move, scheming Queen. There isn’t a moment to lose!!”

“Think about it. The Empire has tons of fighters, so why aren’t they sending any of them to Dorgionix?”

The Queen’s words alone stopped Mikoto in her tracks.

That was admittedly…odd.

It didn’t make sense.

That was the Empire’s second largest city and an industrial city to boot. Flooding there would likely trouble them on the military front too, so why weren’t they acting on a plan so obvious some middle schoolers could come up with it?

“Listen. The dam breaking will flood Dorgionix. On its own, that is a natural disaster. With a natural cause, they have no one to hate. But what if the Empire attempts to prevent it and the dam breaks anyway? Then the city was flooded by the Empire’s failure to blow up the floodgates and it becomes a man-made disaster. Which means the people will have someone to hate.”

“You mean the Empire is afraid of being blamed for the failure, so they aren’t going to do anything? But so many of their own people are at risk! And they have a way of saving them!!”

“I thought Tokiwadai students had a better grasp of politics than this. Vague terms like ‘maybe’ are not found in the political world. Without 100% certainty, they will stand back to avoid the risk. That is the key to a long career as a politician.”

Basically, Shokuhou Misaki was asking why they should go out of their way to create a man-made disaster when it would only be a natural one otherwise.

If they attempted a plan without 100% certainty and it failed, the people – fairly or not – would focus their enmity on the Tokiwadai group. And with the backing of the furious people, the Imperial military would be much more free to act. When their situation was tenuous enough already, why take on extra risk?

True, that might be the wise decision.

But it wasn’t the right decision.

It couldn’t be.

So Mikoto knew what she had to say.

“I’m going to save them.”

“…”

She wasn’t like the Queen.

It was Misaka Mikoto’s ability to say these things without hesitation that made her Tokiwada’s Ace.

“You’re worried about what happens next? Let’s say we could have saved 9 million people but didn’t. If people found out about that, our situation would be far worse.”

“And if you screw this up and let the Slendard Dam collapse?”

“If that happens, you can just give them my name. Tell them it was all my decision. Then the Empire’s concentrated wrath won’t be directed on Tokiwadai as a whole. Does that satisfy you!?”

Part 4

Only some hurried footsteps remained of Mikoto.

Shokuhou Misaki still stood there.

This was the difference between those two.

They understood that, but they could never cross that barrier of their own nature.

Mikoto had demonstrated that all too well.

Shokuhou’s aide’s voice called from within the dark CIC. She didn’t speak loudly, but her voice was firm.

“…Queen.”

Kobayashi understood the difference between the Queen and the Ace.

Which was why, just this once, she had chosen to seek Misaka Mikoto’s advice first.

Ability and efficiency. Benefit and loss. Safety and risk.

There was one answer that could not be reached by pursuing those details.

Namely, what was right.

That was why the Queen had chosen not to stop her.

Because she understood.

She did, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it herself.

She was Academy City’s #5 Level 5, the strongest psychological esper in name and fact.

She pouted her lips childishly.

“Stupid Misaka-san.”

Part 5

Mikoto’s Shinshin two seat custom accelerated down the maintenance hangar’s electromagnetic catapult toward the narrow exit. It took off as if from a tunnel.

A transmission arrived from Kobayashi.

“Izanami to Railgun 01. Head north for now. I predict you will be swept off course by powerful winds once you enter the stormy area. There are no landmarks on the ocean, so keep an eye on your instruments to stay on course. Don’t rely on your senses.”

“Railgun 01. Roger that!”

The refreshing blue sky transformed into dark clouds in only a few minutes.

She heard loud sounds like small masses bursting.

At this speed, rain didn’t fall from above – it crashed into her from the front like laser beams. The fighter didn’t have wipers, so the only way to keep her view clear was to trust in the power of the water repellent and use her own speed to blast the raindrops away.

She saw an occasional flash of light.

That was lightning.

(Come to think of it, I’m flying in a big piece of metal over the open sea. What happens if lightning strikes the fighter? It’s full of delicate equipment.)

This was barely within the Shinshin’s range.

Since she had to make a round trip, she didn’t have time for anything extra. The Shinshin ordinarily seemed to slice effortlessly through the air, but now she felt like she was forcing the nose into the solid headwind.

It’s balance was off.

The Shinshin’s anti-radar design meant all of its armaments were stored inside for stealth.

But now it had an extra fuel tank forcibly attached below. She couldn’t count on any of its usual stealth functionality.

The Imperial radar bases would definitely detect her.

She barely had enough fuel for the round trip. Once this began, she couldn’t avoid a battle with the odds stacked against her.

But difficulties for herself she could accept.

(Now, if the enemy is buffeted by these winds too, it should be a little easier to pull away from them with my spee-)

“Brat 04 to Railgun 01. I have an extra tank too, so you should be able to see me on your radar.”

“!?”

Mikoto first looked down at the screen and froze but then twisted around, eyes wide. She couldn’t turn around well with the seat belt, but she could still tell.

Something was following her.

“What do you think you’re doing!?”

“Brat 04. You have to ask? The Liheilstaut Empire is my country. If its people are in danger, I need no other reason to come flying.”

And she wasn’t the only one.

Two more dots appeared on the radar farther back.

“Teleport 02. You didn’t forget about us, did you, Onee-sama?”

“Rampage 03. I am here too. If I let you take all the glory, the Queen might just start crying.”

Mikoto held a hand to her forehead and sighed.

They were almost to the Empire’s second largest city of Dorgionix. They barely had enough fuel, so there was no time for arguing.

Still, Mikoto felt a greater weight than when the risk was to her alone.

…But Shokuhou Misaki always stood at the top ordering others around, so was this pressure a constant companion for her?

(Yeah, right.)

Still, this was no longer a personal whim. She of course had to keep the gravity dam from breaking and flooding a city of 9 million, but now it was also her responsibility to get every single member of 101 Squadron back to the Izanami and Izanagi.

Mikoto refocused her mind.

She now held the position of squadron leader.

Countless artificial lights twinkled through the thick curtain of pouring rain.

“Izanami to 101 Squadron. That is Dorgionix!!”

“Railgun 01. Roger!”

Mikoto adjusted her grip on the control column.

This was where it really began.

“Follow me, everyone. We need to destroy the stuck flood gates and protect the city!!”

They entered the metropolis’s sky from the ocean side.

In the blowing wind and the downpour that was like a head-on barrage, they heard the distorted deep cries of a siren like the one signaling the start of a baseball tournament. Mikoto initially thought their arrival had been detected and this was an air raid siren, but that wasn’t it.

(It must be a disaster evacuation siren.)

There wasn’t time.

They needed to reach the mountains beyond the city.

While passing over the siren-filled city, she could see the traffic clogging the streets below. As she had feared, the civilian evacuation was getting nowhere.

“Rampage 03. We can’t afford to fail, can we?”

“No.”

The dam came into view.

It looked like a cup full to the brim with water. The emergency water release produced something like a waterfall, but the thick concrete still looked ready to crack and collapse at any moment.

Mikoto switched her display to ground attack mode and set it so any metal detected above a certain size in the stormy mountains was highlighted in white. Some of the quicker people would have managed to evacuate into the mountains before the congestion got too bad, so she couldn’t afford to blow up a car or cabin.

After her radar detected metal in the natural scene, she would zoom in the camera view, locate the flood gate along the river, and lock on using visual identification.

That was of course the ideal, but…

(Argh, it’s all white and hazy. Visibility in the pouring rain is too poor for the camera to work! I need to get closer!!)

“Onee-sama! If you descend any lower, you will crash into the mountainside. This is far more dangerous than using your phone and walking!!”

There wasn’t time.

But once she got a lock, the rest would be easy.

“Railgun 01. I have a lock. Someone double check!”

“Brat 04. No one detected on the surface.”

“Teleport 02. Ditto. No civilians came to check on the river or flood gate, so free free to bomb it.”

That was good to hear.

The flood gate wouldn’t move and it wouldn’t return fire with anti-air weaponry. To make sure the mountainside didn’t get in the way, Mikoto raised her nose to gain some height before flying in an inverted U to flip upside down. While rapidly descending toward the mountain, she launched an air-to-surface missile as if dropping it vertically.

Lightning passed right by her.

“Whoa!!”

The bright flash caused the image identification missile to briefly veer off course, but it found its target again and stabbed into the mountain slope.

The floodgate exploded.

Mikoto twisted her fighter around to level flight before she crashed into the ground.

“Railgun 01. One floodgate down!!”

“Izanami. Understood. You have 9 targets left. How many are necessary depends on the rate of the dam’s emergency water release, but it would be best to destroy them all.”

She now had data on the floodgates from the camera. She set a program to detect similar objects and more than 15 box cursors appeared along the mountainside like the facial recognition indicators in a camera app.

(That’s too many. Is it the rain? That must be causing a few false positives.)

Some RVs stuck in the rain may have been falsely identified as floodgates, so she would have to visually confirm them all anyway.

“Railgun 01 to squadron. You saw how I did it, right? There’s no time to waste, so we need to split up and-”

It happened suddenly.

A shrill missile lock alarm filled the cockpit. Uncertain what was happening, Mikoto made a quick roll to the right, but then the empty space there exploded.

A thick lightning bolt had struck a flying air-to-air missile.

If not for that, she might have been shot down.

(What!? Who!? Where!?)

A dot appeared on her radar for just a few seconds before disappearing again.

The lightning had electrified the air and the aircraft’s surface, preventing it from absorbing the radar waves properly.

Meaning…

“There’s something out there? Be on the lookout for Imperial stealth fighters!!”

“Brat 04. I have visual confirmation. At least one YF-23 and two F-35s. I saw a lift fan, so they must be the B-type with VTOL capability.”

Mikoto glimpsed something through the white curtain of rain.

Two types of stealth girl used the dark forested mountainside to hide.

The YF-23 was a high performance stealth fighter that had competed against the YF-22A. In terms of pure stealth, it was rumored to outdo the YF-22A. For whatever reason, in this world it was a black bikini woman in a tube top (maybe to constrict her chest?). Black diamond-shaped wings spread out from the joint near her shoulder blades. …On Earth, it was a mysterious fighter that left people wondering where it stored its missiles during flight, so where was she storing her weapons?

The F-35B was a stealth fighter developed at the same time as the F-22A. Here, it was a giant black-haired girl in a black sailor uniform. The wings on her back resembled YF-22A’s. Perhaps it came with the stealth, but just like YF-22A, she had flat metal panels extending from below her main wings and around her belly. That would be the weapon bay full of missiles and bombs. She had a single engine nozzle on the back of her hips. But it looked like it was made to point downwards if necessary. …So despite her gloomy and plain appearance, she apparently lay prone and spread her legs wide when doing a vertical takeoff or landing. In her sailor uniform’s skirt.

(They look silly, but they’re a troublesome group. Their specs mean my Shinshin and YF-22A’s superiority won’t be enough here!!)

Those three must have realized they were spotted because they moved away from the mountainside and scattered radar waves as they climbed sharply skyward.

Fortunately, the mountain was not densely populated.

They could engage in a dogfight here.

“Railgun 01 to squadron. 01 and 04 have equivalent stealth, so we’ll take them on. 02 and 03, you focus on blowing up the floodgates! You’re the star today, Teleport 02. If that giant gravity dam breaks, this is all for nothing!!”

“Argh. Teleport 02. Roger that!”

“Brat 04. Roger. It’s a shame, but we should cut free our extra fuel tanks. We need to win this!!”

101 Squadron split sharply into two groups.

A black sailor uniform F-35B tried to pursue Shirai and Hokaze, but YF-22A sprayed her with radar waves to draw her attention.

It had begun.

Mikoto, YF-22A, and the three Imperials fought for a position on each other’s tails, so they were flying sharp circles through the sky.

(Is it really only these three? I hope there aren’t any other stealth fighters hiding nearby.)

Shirai made a disgusted comment as she worked on her task.

“Why would they come get in our way here? Even if they want to fight, couldn’t they wait until after we’ve blown up the floodgates!?”

“Because they don’t want us to blow them up.” Mikoto swallowed bitterly. “The Slendard Dam is Imperial national policy. I don’t know if it there was a design flaw or if these conditions are unprecedented, but if a dam built by the country threatens a city, the people will revolt. But if we screw up here and turn it into a man-made disaster, the people’s anger will be directed at us instead. …The Imperial leaders are already planning to let Dorgionix flood – 9 million residents and all.”

“Rampage 03. Is that why the Imperial Air Force only sent in stealth fighters that won’t appear on radar? So their interference won’t appear in the official records!?”

Even with the extra fuel tanks gone, the lightning electrifying the surface of the aircraft meant neither side’s stealth was perfect.

Mikoto’s Shinshin and the black tube top bikini YF-23 soared through the storm, their paths twisting around each other.

(Our specs are about evenly matched, or hers might be a bit better. But if I use the winds to boost my maneuverability, I can get behind her!!)

The invisible winds of the storm roiled around like a living being, but there was some predictability to the wind direction thanks to the mountainside’s influence. Mikoto could make use of the tailwinds and headwinds.

But then…

“Argh, my flaperon isn’t moving like I want. My fuselage feels so heavy. Railgun 01, help! She’s about to get on my tail!!”

(Uh, oh. The wind’s working against her!)

YF-22A’s movements were sluggish, suggesting the buffeting winds were reducing her maneuverability, so an F-35B was about to get behind her.

She would eventually be killed like that.

Mikoto intended to abandon her dogfight with the YF-23 and go rescue her, but something moved sharply in to block her course.

It was the other F-35B in a black sailor uniform.

“Damn!!”

She was cut off from YF-22A.

“Brat 04 to Railgun 01. She’s on my tail! I can detect her radar waves! You need to get her off of me before she gets a lock!!”

Mikoto was busy dealing with both the YF-23 and an F-35B. She couldn’t go to YF-22A’s rescue right away, but YF-22A would be shot down if she didn’t.

(Damn, what can I use right away!?)

“Railgun 01 to Brat 04. Lower your altitude and continue straight! Stay so close to the mountainside you’re nearly colliding with it!!”

“If I fly straight, she’ll get a lock! I’ll be shot down!!”

“You won’t! Look for the metal tower on the mountain 5km ahead. Make a sharp turn there!!”

That was directly ahead of her in a fighter that flew more than 300m every second.

YF-22A yanked up her nose and began a loop-the-loop.

Unable to respond to the unexpected action, the F-35B fly right past the top of the metal tower.

And she ran into an invisible mass there.

The air. Turbulence slid sharply down the mountainside.

Her black sailor uniform was blown upwards and her armor and wings were pulled upwards too.

Wahhhh!!

Mikoto thought she heard that scream within the blowing wind.

…You couldn’t underestimate natural phenomena. If conditions aligned just wrong, the power of the waves could slice through a cargo ship weighing more than 100 thousand tons or a mass of wind accelerated as it slid down a mountainside could break apart a 40m aircraft.

By observing the terrain and getting the timing right, that could make a decent replacement for an air-to-air missile.

“Report, Brat 04!”

“Um, one down. One of the F-35Bs.”

But it was still two against two.

They couldn’t relax yet.

They were about evenly matched with the F-35B and the YF-23’s specs were a little better.

Still, Mikoto and YF-22A had hope.

Something exploded in the distance.

Shirai or Hokaze’s F-2A must have destroyed another floodgate.

“Izanami to 101 Squadron. The Slendard Dam has passed its estimated time limit, but it remains intact. That proves the amount of water entering the dam has lessened. Keep going!”

Just then, the YF-23 pursuing the Shinshin suddenly veered away. Even though it might have gotten a lock on Mikoto if it had stayed there.

“?”

(That direction!!)

“Railgun 01 to Brat 04! Shoot down the escaping YF-23. That’s our top priority!!”

“Okay, but why are you so concerned about-”

“That bitch is going to launch a missile directly into the dam!! Because she knows they can’t stop 02 and 03 from blowing up the floodgates at this rate!!”

Were they that intent on blaming the dam’s destruction on Tokiwadai?

But if the Slendard Dam didn’t break at all, no one had to take responsibility in the first place.

Fortunately, the enemy was only heading straight for the dam at full speed. That simple motion allowed Mikoto and YF-22A to get a lock while pursuing.

Even though, looking just at their specs, the YF-23 may have been superior.

Maybe she had prioritized approaching and attacking the dam over her own safety.

An air-to-air missile caught up.

Her main wing exploded, she lost balance in midair, and the black tube top bikini YF-23 crashed into the center of the dam’s reservoir lake.

“Railgun 01. One down. The YF-23.”

“Looks like the last one is withdrawing,” said YF-22A as she watched the black sailor uniform girl departing in the direction of Dorgionix.

There was no need to pursue her.

“Teleport 02. The final floodgate is destroyed!”

“Rampage 03. Double check of destruction is complete.”

“…”

Now the #2 city of Dorgionix was safe.

Mikoto had only thought of this as a world where tanks, fighters, and other weapons were giant girls.

But what was this?

Not only had the Liheilstaut Empire abandoned 9 million of their own people to die to dodge responsibility, but they had worked to actively kill them.

This was more than just anthropomorphized weapons. Something was wrong at a deeper level. This really was a different world from Earth.

Part 6

The thick clouds had cleared up.

Of course, the linear rainband wasn’t gone. Mikoto and her squadron were just that far away from land.

It was over. Somehow.

But Mikoto was exhausted and hadn’t gained much at all.

They hadn’t even managed to capture the enemy fighters that had crashed in the mountains or dam. And while the YF-23 and F-35Bs’ personalities left a lot to be desired, not gaining those high performance stealth fighters was a major disappointment.

The Imperial industrial city of Dorgionix would probably continue to produce Girlish Weapons like that, which would then pursue Mikoto and the rest.

(But we did a good thing.)

“…”

Mikoto sighed softly while gripping the control column.

Izanami and Izanagi were waiting in place for them. Their aircraft had barely enough fuel for a round trip, so the ship couldn’t carelessly move and put more distance between them and the continent.

Shokuhou had been right.

The situation was only getting worse. If they hadn’t bothered with Dorgionix, they could have moved the ships further out to sea and perhaps reduced the risk of attack.

“Teleport 02. You don’t have to worry about that, Onee-sama.”

“But I was being selfish.”

“While I am worn out, this is the pleasant kind of worn out, so I don’t mind.”

“Rampage 03. Same here. I would feel much worse if we had let the dam break. You did the right thing, Misaka-sama.”

Mikoto smiled a little.

It was important for one’s sense of purpose to be something unseen. If she followed strict morals of her own will, it could help prevent unnecessary trouble aboard the ships.

She hadn’t been wrong after all.

She was finally confident of that.

“Onee-sama, you land first. You used up the most fuel in that intense dogfight, didn’t you? So hurry.”

If they kept insisting the other go first, they really would run out of fuel.

Mikoto had no choice but to go in and land.

The runway was only 300m long. She was rapidly decelerated by catching a hook on a taut wire.

Wannai hooked the Shinshin up to the tractor and towed it over to the large elevator.

With that, her flight was complete.

It looked like Shirai’s F-2A was coming down next.

“Teleport 02 to Izanami. I am beginning my landing. Phew, get the wire ready.”

She crashed.

Shirai’s F-2A veered just a bit off the runway and slammed into the cruise ship’s mall.

“Eh?”

It happened so fast.

Mikoto had seen it happen, but she still couldn’t believe it.

The fighter exploded a moment later.

Orange flames and a shockwave swelled out.

Mikoto was helpless.

“Kurokooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

Fatigue was a serious issue.

Her underclassman had already reached her limit. This was the result of Mikoto getting her involved. It had happened because Shirai had been forced onto this extra mission.

(It’s my fault.)

They hadn’t put together a dedicated firefighting team. They didn’t have the personnel to spare, so whatever girls were free grabbed fire extinguishers and hoses and ran over. The missiles and ammunition must have ignited along with the fuel because a few even bigger explosions followed. They couldn’t get close with that going on. Even though the pilot was still inside all that fire and steel.

(It’s my fault!!)

Mikoto was watching in a daze when someone appeared right next to her.

A twintails girl was sitting on the Shinshin’s main wing.

“Kuro…ko?”

“Yeah. I would have died in that fire if I couldn’t teleport.”

A whistle shrieked loud. That was Kongou Mitsuko. Hokaze’s F-2A and Girlish Weapon YF-22A were still in the air. They had to get the runway cleared and ready for a landing before those two ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean.

Part 7

The carrier was burning.

The fire was contained to the cruise ship camouflage and it likely wouldn’t affect the actual carrier’s functions much, but that wasn’t the real problem.

This massive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was meant to carry thousands, so trying to operate it with less than 200 had been impossible from the start. They were all elites with extraordinary specs, but doing more than ten times the work of an ordinary person meant more than ten times the fatigue.

YF-22A thought to herself as she slowly circled the carrier waiting for the landing runway to be cleared.

It wasn’t just Shirai Kuroko. The entire crew of the carrier and landing ship had been working nonstop with little rest or sleep, so they were reaching their limit. Order would break down before long.

These people had fought to protect the Imperial people even though they were enemies, but they were being pursued by the Empire that had readily abandoned its own people. And these people were on track to be broken by their own fatigue before the battle even began.

“…”

What had they done to deserve this?

They had suddenly been thrown into an unfamiliar sea on an unfamiliar ship, they had been unilaterally attacked by the Imperial military on suspicion of violating their territorial waters, and yet they had still risked their lives to rescue the Imperial people.

Which side was in the right?

That wasn’t really a question. If she found herself hesitating even momentarily, she needed to choose what she thought was right.

Only then could she put this world back on the right path.

“Brat 04 to Carrier Izanami.”

“What is it, Brat 04?”

“I thought I would give you some simple advice since you don’t know much about the local geography and international situation. Are you all interested in a way of receiving plenty of supplies and rest?”

Between the Lines: A Break and a Progress Report

Everything is progressing nicely. Honest.

How rude. That was not “cope”. Who said that? You’re nothing but a troll trying to get a rise out of me.

Yes. I am sure some of you kindhearted guests are concerned about the harsh events you have seen.

But you have nothing to worry about.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki’s girly fun is coming. With swimsuits. As the one holding the rod, I can feel the fish nibbling on the bait. This is all necessary prep work needed to land a big one.

I know I said I would use an enclosed space to get them flirting, but you have to crank the difficulty way up before monsters like them will recognize the suspension bridge effect.

I am sure you have all noticed the depth number decreasing.

I called this a salvage project, but it is more like fishing.

When fishing, you can’t start reeling in the line full speed right away. If the fish struggles, you will only break the line. Or you could even break the rod.

Instead of trying to bring your catch in right away, you have to let it swim and wear itself out.

Only then do you reel it in and yank it on out of the water!!

Landing a big one requires finesse and technique.

So don’t you worry.

The depth will soon reach 4, which is the midpoint.

This is where the salvage project really begins.

Depth 4: Red or Black

Part 1

The sun blazed in the open sky above the blue sea.

Misaka Mikoto, now in her summer uniform, sounded like she could barely believe what she was saying as she looked out across the land visible from Camouflaged Cruiser Izanami’s deck.

“Sky Pirate Island?”

Now this was sounding like another world.

YF-22A, who had taken the large elevator up from the maintenance hangar to the landing runway, shrugged.

“It’s just a place not affiliated with any of the world powers where anyone who can pay the necessary fees can get their aircraft and ships refueled and maintained. It’s just that their clientele includes smugglers and sky pirates.”

YF-22A had guided them here.

This world’s continent was roughly shaped like a Y, so undersea cables allowed for the shortest distance when laying out hotlines between the countries. And with tens of thousands of kilometers, the maintenance was not cheap.

As the carrier and landing ship traveled along one of those undersea cables, they arrived at a small island in the otherwise empty ocean.

On the paper maps, it was a forgotten island without any markers for even a village or port.

Yet it had an awful lot of artificial structures.

It was in fact a relay base for the hotline that secretly linked the world powers. Joint security by a coalition force sounded nice, but it actually meant the place was a mixture of soldiers from all three world powers with none of them clearly in charge.

Which meant none of those countries’ laws really applied.

That created a lot of legal and surveillance loopholes that allowed illicit businesses to thrive. While handing generous quantities of cash to the soldiers under the table, of course.

And so the Izanami and Izanagi were making use of it too.

As far as Mikoto could tell from the deck, each individual shop was small. A lot of them reused military containers or metal tanks. Cylindrical tanks had been been sliced into rectangular walls with burners and then forcibly remade into shops. Many shops like that were crammed into not much space, creating a complex terrain.

It was a chaotic but lively scene. A lot of people were moving about and disarmed armored vehicle and tank girls were raising and lowering cargo containers like loaders or cranes. It was a mystery which military they had originally belonged to or who owned them now, but the (former?) Girlish Weapons had the satisfied looks of someone who had worked up a nice sweat.

“Chow time. Nothing like a good meal to reward yourself for a hard day of work.”

“Damn, they use better fuel here than they did in the military. Makes me want to work even harder.”

They appeared happy.

The Izanami was camouflaged as a cruise ship, but most of the crew still disembarked into the city. This underground city might have been a little much for some light window shopping, but the Tokiwadai girls were all at least Level 3. Even if they did run into some minor trouble, it was the criminals who would end up hurt.

For now, relieving their fatigue mattered most.

They could wait until later to work out all the mistakes highlighted by Shirai’s crash.

“What will you be doing now?” YF-22A asked Mikoto.

The digital counter aboard the landing ship had 18 days remaining.

They could not hide on this Sky Pirate Island forever. While there was a tacit understanding here, word of their presence could get out at any time. It didn’t even have to be done maliciously. A warship that wasn’t a colossal girl was an unusual sight in this world, so it would lead to rumors.

18 days was a long time.

They could rest and resupply here, but then what?

Misaka Mikoto had her answer.

“We bring down the Liheilstaut Empire.”

Part 2

The Liheilstaut Empire’s imperial residence was only available to someone belonging to a very specific bloodline, no matter how strongly or weakly.

However, bloodline wasn’t everything.

There was one seat there reserved for only someone who had also made a considerable number of military achievements. In this case, skill was prioritized above blood. Because in this country, the emperor and the prime minister were one and the same.

A landline phone sat on the work desk.

The Imperial capital’s international meeting hall and its more than 500 parliamentary seats were just for show.

The Cutalularia Republic to the south.

The United States of Narmeli to the east.

And the Liheilstaut Empire to the west.

All real international politics was handled by the three world powers. And for that, they only needed hotlines directly connecting them to each other.

The world had been operated with these phone calls for some time now.

“What did you say?”

But the foundation of that system had been shaken.

A phone call was not going to fix this one. But they could not directly meet and discuss it either.

An unidentified fleet’s fighters flew the skies.

Who could say what would happen if they carelessly sent out their personal planes.

The unidentified fleet could attack, or their neighbor could attack under the guise of that fleet.

“I said we of the United States of Narmeli and the Cutalularia Republic will be staying out of this particular incident.”

A young woman was speaking.

She was the president of the United States of Narmeli.

She had risen to that position in a country that looked free, but actually provided no way to win an election without decades of groundwork. She would know the unspoken tricks better than anyone.

“Everything has happened in your territory. And you have to keep up appearances. I want to avoid any political foolishness where our attempts to help are taken as an invasion or interference in your internal affairs. The Republic agrees with me there, don’t you?”

“I don’t really care either way,” muttered a gloomy-sounding man.

He sounded careless, but he was in fact the director who effectively ran the Cutalularia Republic, which brought together more than 30 regions and peoples.

This took the wind out of the United States representative’s sails, but she managed to recover quickly enough.

“W-well, I am sure the glorious Liheilstaut Empire will have no trouble solving this problem on its own. Or are you making an official statement that you can’t?”

“Haven’t you considered the possibility of this spreading to you? There is no guarantee they will stay within Imperial territory.”

“If it comes to that, then we will deal with it ourselves. But I am Narmeli’s president, not the Empire’s leader.”

“…”

What did she really think?

Was she going to stay out of this conflict so she could win the unidentified fleet’s trust and establish diplomatic relations with them sooner than anyone else?

Or would she join the Empire in an attack on the unidentified fleet if the situation warranted it?

“I seriously doubt it, but they are not secret forces from either of you, are they?”

“It worries me your intelligence gathering capabilities are so poor.”

“What a pain…” added the Republic’s director.

“If this is all you can manage, then I recommend you consider raising the white flag and coming to the two of us for help.”

“That would be a pain too.”

There was scorn in her voice.

But she hadn’t given a clear yes or no.

There was almost no chance of it being that, so was she only leaving this as an option for camouflage at a later date?

“After all, the Empire always has been slow to react.”

…She knew that and she was choosing the option that benefited the unidentified fleet?

The prime minister shook his head.

“If you aren’t going to help, this discussion is over.”

“Yes. As someone who works for the Narmelian people, I don’t have time to waste on this.”

“…I want to go to Matt’s for a burger,” added the Republic’s director.

“Oh, how I envy you your freedom. Anyway, prime minister, I look forward to hearing good news. Now, if you will excuse me.”

The prime minister set down the receiver.

Then he stared out the window and sighed.

…Who controlled the skies now?

This should have ended when they sent out a B-1B bomber loaded with anti-ship missiles. Their YF-22A shouldn’t have been shot down there.

But that wasn’t how it had happened.

It was all so unexpected.

So irregular.

For better or for worse, these newcomers were altering the order built by the three world powers.

“But do you really understand what that means?”

Part 3

We’re going to bring down the Liheilstaut Empire.

When Mikoto started with that in the Izanami’s briefing room, no one objected.

Not even Shokuhou Misaki or the dorm manager.

The Empire had pursued and attacked the Tokiwadai group without warning, they had invited the Tokiwadai group to the capital for peace talks only for it to be a trap, and they had left 9 million of their own people to die in Dorgionix to protect themselves.

The people of the Empire were one thing, but it was clear just how rotten the leaders at the top were.

As it was, the Empire would make no one happy.

Leaving it like that felt wrong. It was nothing but a threat, both as an enemy or as an ally.

If the Empire began using their own people as hostages across multiple cities, Mikoto and the others would be worn down.

So they had to act before that happened.

It was past the point of giving up because they couldn’t win a direct confrontation.

It was time to discuss what exactly they could attack with the forces available to them in order to make the giant Empire collapse.

“If that’s what we’re doing, we’ll have to start considering the time costs,” said Shokuhou.

“I know that.”

Mikoto recalled the return device(?) in the landing ship. And its digital counter which accurately and evenly counted down with no way to fast-forward or rewind it.

Once it reached zero, Mikoto and the rest would be brought back to Earth no matter the situation.

If they could accomplish something in this world, then every second counted.

It wasn’t that they “still” had 18 days left.

They “only” had 18 days left.

That wasn’t much time to change a world.

While Mikoto thought, Kobayashi spoke up.

“Everyone. Don’t the Empire’s attacks so far seem awfully sporadic?”

“…I guess.”

They were a large country.

They should have been able to flood an enemy country with 10 thousand or even 100 thousand troops, but for some reason they hadn’t launched any large-scale operations.

There was no fear of collateral damage on the open sea, so they could have sent out a ton of carriers and cruisers and assaulted the Izanami and Izanagi with as much firepower as they could muster.

“From the radio signals I’ve been able to analyze, it sounds like the Empire is in an odd position.”

“How so?” asked Shokuhou.

“Well, Queen, their Imperial Armed Forces protect their country as a whole while their Capital Defense Force protects just Frustburg. Those two military forces appear to have overlapping duties that influence national politics a lot. …It creates something like a dual government. The two sides can’t agree on how to respond to the Izanami and Izanagi, so only one side has been carrying out the attacks.”

So this world was as difficult a place as Earth.

Mikoto sighed softly.

“I can more or less imagine what the Imperial Armed Forces are like, but what about the Capital Defense Force? They sound like they’re only supposed to defend a single city, so are they really so powerful?”

“Based on the old digital articles I’ve been able to collect, they believe that offense is the best defense and have spent the past few years wiping two or three smaller countries off the map and then absorbing them into the Empire. They cross the border without waiting for legislative approval and while ignoring all past diplomatic relations, so they are a cause of concern for the Empire as a whole as well.”

Were they monsters?

It sounded like the Capital Defense Force name was just for show and they were actually a powerful army that could cross national borders and sustain a long-term war. That required more than just the Girlish Weapons of land, sea, and air. The power to sustain a war included fuel, funding, and even propaganda to gather support from international society.

And while the Empire complained about them, they didn’t seem willing to actually stop them.

If the Empire as a whole could gain new territory and vast amounts of reparations by making the “rogue” Capital Defense Force into the villains, they benefited the most by leaving them alone. It was better than getting after them and ending up with a civil war,.

This had been illuminating already.

The busty wicked girl said, “It sounds to me like the fastest way would be to use the Imperial Armed Forces and the Capital Defense Force’s preexisting disagreements to pit them against each other.”

“You monster.”

“Oh, please, Misaka-saaan. I know you’re already doing mental calculations of where you need to fly and what you need to bomb to make it happen.”

…Well, yeah.

They could do some work behind the scenes to trigger a civil war in an enemy nation and drive it to self-destruction.

The Ace and the Queen had immediately chosen that horrific method, but there was one condition they couldn’t forget.

They were enemies with the Liheilstaut Empire, but they had no intention of attacking the ordinary citizens who knew nothing of any of this.

If they were going to attack, it would be against military installations.

“I’m sure the Imperial Armed Forces and the Capital Defense Force are at odds in a number of areas, but where do you think they disagree most strongly?” asked Shokuhou.

“With these. The Frozen Fossils,” replied Kobayashi. Was this something else she had learned by intercepting radio signals? “Girlish Weapons are the foundation of all military forces in this world – army, navy, air force, and marines. And that means their original materials are as well. I believe the Imperial Armed Forces and the Capital Defense Force’s influence on the country’s politics is directly linked to how many fossils they have. Excavation rights in the northern permafrost are especially fraught.”

“Attacking there would be difficult,” said Mikoto.

They were currently to the south of the continent. If they flew straight across the continent to its northwest end, the Imperial Air Force’s radar network would catch them. Mikoto’s squadron had already proven that stealth wasn’t perfect. But if they took a detour around by sea, they would use up their 18 day limit.

“There is a loophole,” added Kobayashi.

“?”

“In addition to excavating them on their own land, it seems the Empire will unofficially purchase Frozen Fossils from other countries.”

What country would sell those fossils when they were the foundation of military might? That seemed off to Mikoto, but maybe those countries lacked the technology to process them or maybe they preferred to trade them for other resources like food or fuel.

Different countries would have different needs.

Back on Earth, uranium and plutonium were sold by the countries that produced it to the countries that used it.

“The fossil black market is most active to the south, in illegal and unmonitored bases like Sky Pirate Island here.”

“So is it the Imperial Armed Forces or the Capital Defense Force doing the buying?”

“Both and in the same places. If we attack one spot, all of the black market sites in the area will put up their guard and began searching for someone to blame.”

If they were that in sync with each other, why couldn’t they just get along?

When someone discovered a crime, did everyone just copy them?

“So we just have to take those fossils by force?”

“Then the Imperial Armed Forces and the Capital Defense Force might start fighting, claiming the other is responsible☆”

Fortunately, the long-sleeved black leotard YF-22A, the school swimsuit catgirl F-14Ds, and the other captured fighters were all Imperial. If they attacked a black market site, both the Imperial Armed Forces and the Capital Defense Force would get the wrong idea. Their IFF signals hadn’t been updated and wouldn’t work, but if it looked like they had intentionally switched off their IFF, it could be seen like their own people were wearing masks and robbing the place.

“But their dual government won’t know where information on the deal leaked from.”

“If they underestimate our intelligence gathering ability, they might even start suspecting the other two world powers. They could think the other faction is being backed by the other world powers in a proxy war.”

“Then they’ll feel justified in defeating their own people who they think are colluding with and fighting for a foreign power. They’ll think justice is on their side. Then will they be pointing at each other and shouting about a nonexistent conspiracy?”

“Yes, that sounds perfect for lighting the fuse of a civil war☆”

The dual government had already been at odds.

Given the chance, they would start fighting.

Tokiwadai had a plan now.

And with that settled…

“Misaka-saaan.”

“What?”

“I have one more question ability.”

Part 4

In the Izanami’s maintenance hangar, Mikoto clapped her hands to gather the Girlish Weapons’ attention.

“Your squadron leader this time will be YF-22A. The rest of the stealth squadron will be the three F-117As. You will be 200 Squadron. I know this is last second, but you were all given Imperial Air Force flight training. You can work together, I hope?”

“Hm? Why end our number with a 0?”

“Because you’re stealth fighters who should be nonexistent on radar.”

Mikoto answered the (big) leotard girl’s puzzled question.

“Your target is a pair of suspicious ships disguised as civilian tankers that have made an unnatural approach in the middle of the ocean. Don’t get spotted before you make your preemptive strike on the Empire’s Frozen Fossil black market deal.”

“L-l-leave it to…us,” quietly replied a black raincoat and bikini F-117A. She must have been introverted to the core because she couldn’t even look Mikoto in the eye.

“After 200 Squadron’s stealth attack, 202 Squadron of the four F-15Cs will hurry away form this area of sea with your afterburners on full blast. Your purpose is to support the escape of 200 Squadron and to give an obvious radar reading for the Imperials involved in the black market deal. Our goal is to get the Imperial Armed Forces and the Capital Defense Force to clash, so we can’t use stealth fighters from beginning to end and have it all go unnoticed.”

“Ehh? Then what about us?”

“The four F-14Ds of 201 Squadron and the three F/A-18Es of 203 Squadron will remain here on the carrier. We hope to avoid it if at all possible, but if we’re discovered before the preemptive strike, the Empire may launch an attack on the carrier. We need you here as interceptors just in case.”

The school swimsuit catgirl F-14Ds gathered around and began chatting amongst themselves. They were arguing over the EM and IR air-to-air missiles.

This time, Mikoto’s Shinshin two seat custom and Shirai and Hokaze’s F-2As would not be taking part. The point was to trick the Empire, so using the Earth-style fighters would only give away that Tokiwadai was behind it.

(We really do have a lot of captured fighters now.)

Mikoto stared into the middle distance.

They could plan an entire operation around just the Girlish Weapons, so that was at least some kind of progress.

“What kind of enemy forces are we expecting?” asked YF-22A.

“They’re doing a black market deal in secret, so nothing that would gather attention.” Mikoto smiled a little. “Kobayashi-san says they have a YF-23 and an F-35B in the air. And then four F-16Cs on standby.”

“Oh, her.”

“Yes, that black tube top bikini. The YF-23 we fought at the dam must have been hauled out of the reservoir lake and restored. And she still has that black sailor uniform with her. They were probably assigned to this dirty job so their stealth could keep any of it from ending up in the official records.”

The YF-23 had about equal specs to the Shinshin and YF-22A. And there wouldn’t be any irregularities like the storm this time around.

It would be a pure comparison of strength.

“The non-stealth F-16s are probably meant as bait. If you end up chasing them around, the stealth ones can sneak up behind you, so be careful. I recommend avoiding one-on-one dogfights and instead creating many-against-one situations so you can crush them.”

“Wait, are you doubting my ability? I am not about to lose to the fighter I defeated in competition.”

“That kind of arrogance is what scares me…”

It was time to get started.

With help from Kongou and the swim team, Mikoto had the stealth group launched from the electromagnetic catapult before moving on to the four F-15Cs who had extra fuel tanks loaded to extend their flight range. At times like this, the electromagnetic catapult was more convenient because it didn’t need time to be recharged like a steam one would. …And the way they were launching fighters not meant for use on carriers suggested Kongou Mitsuko really had modified the electromagnetic catapult.

With that done, Mikoto and Shirai moved to the CIC.

This time, their battle would be on a table.

Part 5

7 PM.

Sunset.

“Brat 04. Did this black market group really have to schedule their crime for dinner time?”

“Izanami. Deals like this are always done at busy times. Gathering in the dead of night would stand out more.”

Mikoto smiled bitterly as she answered from the CIC.

The operation had already begun.

200 Squadron, composed entirely of stealth fighters, was precise.

YF-22A and the three F-117As slipped into the 50km range of the radar dot representing the two ships.

They detected no radar waves from the enemy fighters.

Their approach had gone unnoticed.

“That’s stealth for you. They slipped past the perimeter defenses.”

Kobayashi sounded impressed, but this was only the first phase of the operation.

…Was this how these battles felt for Shokuhou?

Mikoto found it unbearable. Flying out there herself was so much better than sending other people to possible death.

“Brat 04 to Izanami. I have visual confirmation of the targets. The two tankers are stopped unnaturally close to each other.”

“That’s them,” said Shokuhou. “Begin your attack, 200 Squadron.”

“Sh-Shadow 01, attack authorization confirmed.”

The rapidly-moving dots of the F-117As overlapped the ships.

On site, the aerial bombs were probably piercing through the tanker’s armor and exploding within.

“Um…Shadow 01 to Izanami. Bombing of Suspicious Ship 1…complete.”

“Okay, Shadow 01,” said Shokuhou. “That’s phase one complete. There’s no need to finish them off. As long as the Imperial Armed Forces and Capital Defense Force suspect each other, we have what we want.”

“The Imperial interceptors will be coming now!” warned Mikoto. “Begin phase two!!”

The nearby fighters of course noticed when the ship they were meant to be guarding took damage and belched flames.

This was war until the stealth fighters made it back alive.

If they were shot down here, the entire operation was a bust.

And when it came to aircraft versus aircraft (even if they looked like girls), Mikoto knew more than Shokuhou.

“Izanami to 202 Squadron. You’re up. Confuse the enemy before they surround 200!!’

“Mama 01. We were just arriving.”

It was four against four.

Several dots clashed on the radar display. After the Tokiwadai F-15Cs and the Imperial F-16Cs passed each other head on, one of the F-16C dots winked out.

“Hi! Mama 02 to Izanami. I shot down one of those suntanned shorts girls.”

“Mama 01 to 02. You shouldn’t attack head on because the wreckage will hit you. It’s indecent.”

One must have launched an air-to-air missile as they passed by. Pretty good when the opening would have only been near instantaneous.

Between the leggings mama F-15Cs and the F-16Cs (who were probably some kind of girl here), the F-15s were stronger. The two had been designed to fight together as a combination of a high quality fighter and a low cost fighter (on Earth anyway), so that was the expected result.

(How could the Empire overturn this power balance?)

Mikoto quickly grasped the situation.

“Izanami to 202 Squadron. Focus on guarding the F-117As.”

“Yes, they are the world’s first stealth fighter, so they’re really only meant for ground attacks.” said Shokuhou.

“Just make sure they aren’t shot down!!”

“Mama 01 to Izanami. Roger thaaat!”

“Mama 04. My, my. But are they okay?”

“…”

Mikoto knew what she meant.

This was another problem.

YF-22A and the equivalent F-35B black sailor uniform.

And the possibly superior YF-23 black tube top bikini.

They could use their advanced stealth to vanish from radar and operate their thrust vectoring nozzles to circle sharply behind their enemy. If you lost sight of them for even a second, they would instantly get on your tail and lock on.

“Brat 04. I have visual on that black tube top bikini… I’ll deal with YF-23. Yes, as the F-22 that won the competition!!”

“Mama team, watch out for the unaccounted-for F-35B! And make sure our stupid stealth fighter doesn’t get too full of herself! If she tries anything suicidal, stop her even if it means ramming her!!”

In truth, it would be a close thing for YF-22A to defeat the YF-23.

It was 50/50.

And If the F-35B managed to sneak up behind her, she didn’t stand a chance.

That curly blonde twintails girl was only a passing acquaintance here, but Mikoto couldn’t force her into a hellish gamble with only a 50% chance of survival. That was like having her play Russian roulette with three rounds in the revolver.

(If she’s going to do this, she needs to work with the four F-15Cs to overwhelm the YF-23 with numbers. No, even that won’t be enough. That’s hardly safe!!)

Sending radar waves from multiple directions at once and compiling the data would reveal a stealth fighter on radar, but…

“We still aren’t seeing her most of the time.” Kobayashi clenched her teeth while staring at the radar display. “She keeps appearing and disappearing from radar, but I think we’re going to lose sight of the YF-23 like this! As soon as there’s an opening, she’ll strike!!”

“IFF!” shouted Mikoto in realization. “The YF-23 must be emitting an EM signal to keep her own side from attacking her. Without that, the F-35B or F-16Cs might accidentally lock onto her.”

“Oh, and if we can detect the IFF signal sent by the stealth fighter…”

“We can see the YF-23’s location!!”

Kobayashi hurriedly ran her finger along the console.

(This won’t last long. They’ll fix it once they notice!!)

“Izanami to all fighters. Begin a saturation attack on the YF-23!! You don’t have to wait until you’re right behind her. Just lock on and fire!!”

YF-22A, four F-15Cs, and three F-117As.

A total of eight fighters surrounded the YF-23 and launched two air-to-air missiles each. Pursued by a double digit amount of missiles, even that powerful fighter was forced frantically roll into a sharp turn.

Ordinarily, a missile fired anywhere except from behind was unlikely to hit.

And that was fine.

Even if it didn’t hit, the missile’s course was blocked off to the target. And when the target couldn’t escape there, it limited their available routes. Once she couldn’t escape in any other direction, they could launch another missile from directly behind the trapped YF-23 and destroy her.

Except…

“Brat 04. Attack failed!! That diamond woman shook free of all 16 missiles!! Right in front of me!!”

(She managed to escape all of that!?)

It was looking less and less like they could set up a one-on-one dogfight. This went beyond pure specs – Mikoto sensed piloting skill here. Attempting a head-on battle would only get them shot down.

Then Kobayashi’s eyes widened.

“The YF-23’s IFF has vanished? She must have caught on!! She’s back to pure stealth! We can’t see her!!”

(We still have options!!)

“Izanami to Brat 04. Work with the F-15Cs to drive the enemy to the northeast. Keep sending radar waves their way. Make sure you get at least two of their F-16Cs!!”

“Hm? But they’re less of a threat since they aren’t stealth-”

“Just do it!!”

The four F-15Cs acted before YF-22A did. The long-sleeve black leotard girl hurriedly followed after them.

They circled around to group the enemy together in a single direction and the inferior F-16s had no choice but to keep their distance. That meant three of the enemy fighters were turning in the same direction.

Even though the Tokiwadai side was guiding them to do so.

And Mikoto’s top priority was still the YF-23.

This was the result.

“Eh?”

First, Kobayashi expressed confusion.

“I’m still not seeing the YF-23 on radar, but its engine heat signal is gone too. And for some reason I’ve lost one of the fleeing F-16Cs too.”

“Brat 04 to Izanami. We were just chasing them away when they collided in midair.”

Mikoto smiled bitterly.

So it had worked.

“The YF-23 had at least switched off her IFF and fully vanished from radar. That meant not even the F-16Cs on her side could see her.”

Pure stealth was only really meant for lone long-range flights sneaking across national borders in order to pinpoint bomb enemy VIPs or facilities. In other words, assassination missions. It was more like a noose around the neck during a chaotic dogfight with plenty of enemies and allies.

Mikoto made a point of marking the coordinate on the map. That fighter would make an excellent addition to their forces if they collected her later.

Mikoto released a gentle sigh.

“Izanami to all fighters. That leaves two F-16Cs which are inferior to our four F-15Cs and one F-35B which is weaker than an F-22. We have the advantage in quantity and quality. Shoot them all down and then return once they aren’t capable of pursuing you. But don’t let your guard down to the very end. The F-117As aren’t suited for dogfighting, so let them get away first.”

“Shadow 03 to Izanami. U-um, Suspicious Ship 2 is still out there.”

“The suspicions we want aren’t going to spread without a witness making it back alive. Besides, we’re not here to kill.”

The Empire’s dual governments already hated each other.

If a black market deal for Frozen Fossils was attacked, they would initially suspect each other, but neither side would know how the information got out. If the Empire sufficiently underestimated Tokiwadai, they would suspect the other two world powers before them. They would suspect those world powers were backing a proxy war.

They would want to defeat the corruption within the Empire, cut all ties with the external force hiding behind that corruption, and bring their country back to normal. That sounded like a decent enough reason to begin a war.

“Anyway, Misaka-san,” said Shokuhou, sounding somehow displeased. “The stage is now set for a civil war within the Empire, but were you planning to support the Imperial Armed Forces or the Capital Defense Force?”

The Imperial Armed Forces or the Capital Defense Force?

Neither side could be called “the good guys”. This discussion was about which of the bad guys they wanted to win.

After some thought, Mikoto spoke up.

“We side with the Capital Defense Force and destroy the Imperial Armed Forces. It’s the only real choice.”

The Capital Defense Force crossed national borders and attacked other countries without permission from anyone, so they were of course dangerous.

But the Imperial Armed Forces had lied to Shokuhou and tried to capture her and they were the ones who had intentionally left the dam to break. Letting them win wouldn’t improve anything. The Imperial people would still be viewed as disposable. If anything, things would escalate without the Capital Defense Force to get in their way.

This was the best way to change things.

The Capital Defense Force was already uncontrollable, so there had to be more openings there to guide them to self-destruction.

(And if I’m right…)

Part 6

The Empire had long had a dual government, so they had long been mocked for their slow reaction speed.

So they would eliminate that system.

The instant the Capital Defense Force caught a whiff of a civil war brewing, they moved to take the legislature and the imperial residence. It was said they had already been prepared for this and had run countless experiments moving game pieces around on a map.

The Guard Chief who led the Capital Defense Force stormed into the imperial residence with plenty of his men accompanying him. They marched right in through the front door.

A young soldier in the lobby saluted and gave a report.

“The entire building has been secured and the prime minister has been arrested.”

“Don’t kill him yet. He has no power left, but as a hostage, he can act as a breakwater to slow the Armed Forces.”

Also shooting him in the middle of the fighting would mean he had died a victim. That would be a problem. He had to be brought to court-martial and tried as a criminal for the confusion he had long brought the political world and all the ways he had harmed the Imperial people.

“You can lock him in a room if you want, but do not give him an opportunity to kill himself.”

“No chance of that. He is currently confined in the 1st floor guest suite.”

“A conference room would be sufficient!”

They didn’t really care about the imperial residence.

But the hotline between the three world powers was located in the prime minister’s office here.

And more than that…

“Where is the safe?”

“Attempting to force the lock would incinerate the contents with an incendiary round, but we will have it open before long. The launch codes will be ours soon.”

Good enough.

Launching a nuke or ballistic missile required launch codes from two nations, but having them was still better than not.

They were necessary to silence the opposing domestic faction, to encourage their people, and to negotiate with the other nations. By hinting to the other two world powers that whoever sided with them would be allowed to launch their missiles.

“Chief, we are receiving a call over the hotline.”

“Already?”

This was not going to be a slow civil war.

He suspected the Untied States and the Republic as well, but eliminating the traitors and returning their country to normal came first. He would use those other countries to kill the collaborators themselves while he kept a close watch on his own back.

By quickly establishing a coalition force and putting them to work, he could rid his country of the loathsome Imperial Armed Forces. That tiny unidentified fleet with only a carrier and landing ship could be crushed after that was done.

The Guard Chief picked up the receiver.

“Why should we accept your Capital Defense Force as our equals?” said an icy voice.

He couldn’t believe his ears. He couldn’t imagine why they would look down on him like that.

But the United States President was a step ahead of him.

“What are you-”

“You are a Capital Defense Force. No matter how much power you have amassed, you only exist to protect a city. That does not make you a state recognized by international law. Our United States of Narmeli and the Cutalularia Republic are allied with the Liheilstaut Empire.”

“I never said all that…” said another voice.

“Just go with it, Director. If a nefarious armed force has taken control of your country in a coup, we would be willing to express our love for our neighbor by crushing that armed force.”

“Y-you wouldn’t dare, Narmeli!”

“Of course, we would have to insist on charging a paltry fee for our services. The United States and the Republic would likely have to divide up your territory for ourselves.”

“We control our own country. The Capital Defense Force is the Liheilstaut Empire now! We are a world power! If you insist on starting a war, we will fight back. Did you think our army, navy, air force, and marines had fewer Girlish Weapons than yours? Attack us at your peril!!”

“Oh? Have you forgotten a rather important fact here?”

“What a pain…” said the third voice.

“It won’t be much longer now, Director. Well, Chief? Have you forgotten what it means for our two countries to have arrived at the same conclusion?”

He felt a cold sweat on his back.

Nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles could only be used with a majority vote by the three world powers. No single country could choose to launch a nuke.

It required two votes.

This farce of a pact had effectively prevented any nukes or ballistic missiles from being used. But what if that assumption was no more?

What if the United States and the Republic were working together in the name of suppressing the Empire’s civil war?

What if neither of them saw any more value in their relations with the collapsing Empire?

They had two votes.

And the Empire could not play the retaliation card.

“Don’t worry. Unlike you, we have a rational grasp of the situation.”

Much to his own chagrin, the Guard Chief felt relieved by that monster’s words. But then…

“We promise not to use any nuclear warheads. Of course, that still leaves thermobaric, cluster, and plenty more warheads capable of leveling your military strongholds.”

A scream rang out just before a great mass tore through the air raid sirens ringing across the capital and dropped straight toward the imperial residence.

Part 7

The moment of truth had arrived.

Mikoto was called back to the CIC not long after exiting it.

“What happened!?”

“Ballistic missiles,” answered Kobayashi, looking like she could scarcely believe it. “We detected missile silos activating in the central mountainous region forming a permanent no man’s land between the three world powers. At least 38 ballistic missiles were launched toward Imperial territory. The warheads appear to have mostly been thermobaric, but the details are unknown. It looks like the important bases for the Empire’s army, navy, air force, and marines were all incinerated.”

“…”

(That’s overkill! Even if they didn’t recognize them as the legitimate leaders of the country!!)

At most, Mikoto had expected the other world powers to cut the Empire off from international society so their economy declined too far for them to wage war.

But they had instead made a very physical response.

What had happened to them not being able to use their ballistic missiles?

No. Technically speaking, they needed two votes from the three countries to unlock them.

Which meant…

Shokuhou spoke with an emotionless voice.

“Both the United States of Narmeli and the Cutalularia Republic must have chosen to launch them. Before the Liheilstaut Empire’s civil war could detrimentally affect international politics and the economic markets.”

“That’s a good point. If the Empire decided to take control of some mines outside their borders to prepare for their civil war, it becomes the other countries’ problem too. But still…”

This concluded Tokiwadai’s plan.

At the very least, the Empire was no longer a military threat. They had been demolished before the civil war could even begin.

But…

“What happened to the civilians? What about the ordinary people living in the Empire!?”

“The ballistic missiles were all targeting military bases and they provided powerful but precise destruction,” explained Kobayashi, sounded dazed and weak. As if to say this was a silver lining. “The imperial residence in the capital was attacked too, but that sturdy shelter was fully destroyed without even starting a fire in the city located just beyond the premises.”

Was that enough to feel good about this?

Probably.

It had to be.

Even if the cities had only been left untouched to preserve the benefits of taking that territory, it still meant all those lives had not been taken.

But there was a downside. This had, after all, proven that ballistic missile attacks capable of reaching the other side of the planet were capable of destroying their target with such precision.

18 days remained.

But if those two countries attacked, the Izanami and Izanagi would be sunk no matter where they ran. They could cross the sea to the other side of the planet and still be destroyed.

And that moment could arrive at any time.

Depth 3: A Single Betrayal

Part 1

Helplessness ran rampant.

Conversation had all but vanished aboard Camouflaged Carrier Izanami.

Mikoto felt like more people weren’t finishing their meals.

She had also heard the Izanami’s sickbay was now a busy place.

A lot of the girls were asking for sleeping pills.

The rules-loving dorm manager had apparently been going nuts, but Watanabe-sensei had managed to placate her. Good thing too because if that tyrannical glasses women was loosed on the Izanami now, none of the girls living there would survive.

Because every one of them was deserving of punishment by Tokiwadai standards. All of their lives were out of balance to some extent.

And it all came down to one thing.

“Fear of a ballistic missile,” muttered Mikoto.

The Empire had already targeted them with a variety of Girlish Weapons, but this was on another level. Struggling to survive would have zero influence on their fate.

No matter what they did, the other side only had to press a button.

Their lives were in someone else’s hands.

It was hardly surprising they were under enough stress to neglect the everyday necessities.

Mikoto was currently in the deserted cruise ship sports gym. Specifically, she was pedaling the exercise bike. She was the kind of girl who could relieve stress and such with exercise.

She glanced over at the adjacent booth as she pedaled.

“You have Mental Out, so can’t you erase everyone’s stress all at once?”

“Huff, puff. Not…happening.”

A girl for whom exercise didn’t have that effect was clutching the handlebar while flushed, sweating, and tearful. Even though the bike was on the lowest speed setting, which was probably slower than walking.

Shokuhou wore a tank top and leggings for a yoga woman look while Mikoto (in a T-shirt and shorts) stared at her with a distant look in her eyes.

“I think your problem is your jiggling boobs shaking you side to side too much. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.”

“My – cough – my chest is not that heavy. They aren’t wrecking balls.”

“No, I’m pretty sure they’re your true form. Their jiggling is throwing around the flimsy body attached to them.”

“Huff, puff. I’m going to scratch you if you keep this up, Misaka-saa- ugh.”

Whatever the case, she was so out of shape she needed rehab with a nurse to supervise, not a training session. …So this was fine. Mikoto had no reason to feel inferior to her. None at all.

“15 days left.”

“Huff, puff. Nothing has happened yet, cough, but you don’t think that’s going to last all the way to the end, do you? Ugh, cough.”

“Look, if you want that serious expression to work, you’re going to have to stop sweatily and tearfully looking to me for rescue.”

Then someone entered the sports gym.

It was their underclassman Shirai Kuroko.

“Onee-sama, I need your help! Trouble has broken out in the dining hall and it’s too much for me to handle on my own!!”

“Hm? Not often you ask for help with your Judgment duties.”

Was the situation that dire?

The nature of this “trouble” was unclear, but as dainty as the Tokiwadai girls looked, they were all high-level espers. With so many in such close quarters, the damage they could cause if ignited was incalculable.

“Just follow me to the dining hall!!”

“You come too, Shokuhou.”

“Huff, why should I bother? Puff, she asked for your help ability, urp, so you go deal with it yourself.”

“You must be thirsty, Shokuhou. Here have this room temperature sports drink.”

“Gurgle, gurgle!? No! So many chemicals!!”

After providing divine punishment tailor-made for that idiot who was dehydrated but refused to drink anything she considered unnatural, Mikoto skipped taking a shower and let Shirai lead her down the corridor.

“So what’s happening?”

“They weren’t physically attacking each other when I left, but it’s only a matter of time.”

That sounded bad.

They headed to the dining hall with lonely Shokuhou Misaki (still in her sportswear and unsteady on her feet) trailing behind them.

They called it a dining hall, but it was really a restaurant in the cruise ship area.

Uncertain what she would find, Mikoto opened the thick double-doors that felt like something from a party venue.

“We have no choice but to fight! When it was the Empire, they didn’t even give us a chance to talk. We’re dead if they launch even a single ballistic missile!!”

“We should surrender and explain the situation to them! We fought against the Empire, but we never touched the United States or the Republic!!”

She was hit by voices.

Mikoto was surprised to find voices could produce such a powerful storm.

She didn’t know who all it was, but the fighting wasn’t just between two people.

A large group of girls was split in two and glaring at each other while throwing fierce words back and forth.

Would they fight or not?

It was a touchy situation.

They were all wound up so tight Mikoto feared even a loud sneeze on her part could trigger a group esper battle. Was this what they got for inducing a civil war?

“Huh…”

“See what I mean?”

Tokiwadai students would sometimes claim to have never once gotten angry in their lives, but apparently that didn’t apply when death was so close at hand.

Mikoto glanced over at the #5, but Shokuhou only shrugged.

As they had touched on in the gym, she apparently had no intention of calming them down with Mental Out.

Or rather…

(She probably doesn’t want to create any unnecessary suspicion. Like that she caused the stress running rampant on the ship and she’s treating it as a way of gathering support.)

With something invisible like the mind, there was no way of disproving such things. At that point, she would have to turn them all into mindless dolls to end it.

“Kuroko, does your position as Judgment mean anything anymore?”

“I kind of doubt it…”

“Oh, I know. We can go call the dorm manager.”

The girls instantly fell silent.

The talk of battling a military power or of surrendering was just that: talk. None it felt real to them. So it couldn’t overpower something they knew all too well.

Like finding someone trembling in fear of ghosts in a supposedly haunted house and telling them all the cracks in the old building’s walls were probably releasing tons of carcinogenic asbestos dust. That would overpower anyone’s fear of ghosts and send them running for the exit. The Izanagi was here too, so they might as well make use of it.

“Misaka-saaan. That’s only going to work once.”

She knew that.

They had to come up with a plan before everyone’s fears and anxieties exploded.

Hopefully nothing would happen before they could.

Part 2

In the middle of the night, a girl spoke in the darkness.

“If we couldn’t fight, there wouldn’t even be an argument.”

Part 3

It was still before dawn when Misaka Mikoto was woken by a deafening noise.

It wasn’t the roar of a fighter’s engines.

It was an electronic tone. Like a fire alarm or a siren.

“Ugh!!”

She groaned in bed, but the sound didn’t end even after she waited a bit.

Throwing a cardigan on over her pajamas, she staggered out of her cabin. No one could sleep with this going on, so quite a few girls were poking their heads out of their cabins to see what was going on.

“Wh-what is that?”

“I don’t know,” said Mikoto before remembering that, as much as this part looked like a gorgeous and luxurious cruise ship, they were in fact aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

Hopefully this wasn’t trouble with the nuclear part.

Accompanied by an extremely sleepy looking Shokuhou (wearing a horrible sheer negligee), Kobayashi approached while operating a tablet.

“This is an emergency alarm. Apparently the problem is related to the maintenance hangar.”

In fact, the problem was some metal objects that had been fixed along the wall in front of the maintenance hangar in order to keep them out of the way. They were each about the size of a vaulting box and more than ten of them lined the corridor.

Together, they functioned as a transformer used to regulate a high-voltage electric current. Mikoto didn’t know if it had been on the Izanami to begin with or if Kongou and the others had installed it while modifying the electromagnetic catapult.

A faint smoky smell hung in the air.

And the disconcerting sound of popping electricity.

There was a short.

“W-without these…the catapult won’t work,” said a dazed Kongou, who spent all her time in here. She was slumped down with her hand still on an alarm with its protective glass broken.

Mikoto knew what this had to mean.

For an aircraft carrier, that device was like its dominant hand. She doubted the aircraft they had here were enough to defeat a world power like the United States or the Republic, but their situation felt so much more hopeless if they couldn’t launch any of those aircraft.

The captured Girlish Weapon F-35B might be able to make a vertical takeoff, but that was just one aircraft. They couldn’t expect much more than reconnaissance from her. She could only carry so many missiles, so she could be overwhelmed by superior numbers even if each individual enemy was inferior.

This left Tokiwadai as a whole defenseless.

Also…

“Is that a soy sauce based seasoning? Come to think of it, there were several industrial-sized containers of it in the ship’s galley.”

Mikoto had noticed the powerful scent but hadn’t commented on it, but Hokaze came out and mentioned it.

The place was soaked.

The air felt as heavy as lead.

This was no accident. And the seasoning had burned onto the machinery, making repairs more difficult than with simple water. Someone in Tokiwadai had intentionally tried to destroy the homemade transformer for the electromagnetic catapult.

There was a traitor in their midst.

Mikoto looked to the maintenance hangar. YF-22A, the giant girl in a long-sleeved leotard, was in there, but she only gave Mikoto a puzzled look in response.

She must not have seen anything.

The transformer was right in a blind spot. And the exit was too narrow for the fighter-sized Girlish Weapon, so she couldn’t even stick her head through to take a peek. That too seemed intentional.

A heavy mood hung in the air.

Kobayashi clasped her hands in front of her chest, forced a smile, and encouraged everyone. To keep them from freezing up.

“A-anyway, we’ll just have to repair it. Fortunately, the electrical system only got some seasoning on it, so we should be able to-”

“How?” asked Kongou, her head still lowered. “How can you be so sure the damage isn’t worse than that? Unless you were here when it happened.”

“Eh?”

Kobayashi didn’t catch the implication at first.

She also failed to notice the people around her pulling back like a receding wave when Kongou glared at her.

“Thinking back, it never made sense. Kobayashi-san, you knew too much. You knew when the dam was about to break, you knew about the Empire’s supposedly secret deal for Frozen Fossils, and you knew exactly how much damage the ballistic missiles caused.”

“Only because I’m usually the one in charge of radar and communications…”

“And you intercepted encrypted transmissions down in the CIC? You couldn’t find all those details from a scattering of messages. Not unless you were communicating with an outside force like the United States of Narmeli or the Cutalularia Republic!”

The air seemed to freeze.

Kobayashi hadn’t expected this at all, so her mouth flapped wordlessly a few times before she got her voice out.

“That’s…that’s absurd! I’ve never even set foot on the continent. How would I secretly get in contact with someone I’ve never even seen?”

“You have all that communication equipment, don’t you? And it’s the professional stuff that can support an entire fleet.”

The first shot had been fired.

And once one person began to doubt, it was hard to stop.

“If you could receive encrypted transmissions, you could send them too. You struck a deal with someone you’d never met without ever taking a step outside the CIC. Was it for money? Or power? Or maybe they’ve already decided when they’ll launch their ballistic missile attack on the Izanami and you agreed to sabotage us in exchange for helping you escape to safety in a submarine or something.”

The tension in the air was palpable.

This was all just wishful thinking. Kongou was only looking for some kind of escape route. But that one drop of hope stimulated the other girls with that entirely fictional story.

Kobayashi shouldn’t have faltered.

When suspicion turned to the communication equipment, she should have demanded Kongou provide evidence from the usage logs or recording tapes. The burden of proof lay on the one making an accusation, not the other way around.

But she didn’t.

So Kongou leaned forward and raised her voice.

“You and only you had a reason to destroy the carrier’s catapult. For anyone else, it’s nothing but suicide!!”

Most likely, the fact that the entire hangar deck hadn’t been trashed by an esper power meant the sabotage had been done by someone who knew a fair amount about how the catapult worked. So wouldn’t the most likely candidate be…Kongou? But no. She wasn’t a good enough liar to cause a scene like this in order to cover her tracks.

“…”

“…”

But Mikoto suspected it was one of the two swim team members who were always assisting Kongou with her work: Wannai and Awatsuki.

One look at their pale faces as they huddled together a short distance away was enough to know that.

Of course, they hadn’t done it because they were working for the United States of Narmeli or the Cutalularia Republic. They had probably thought it would be best if the Izanami lost its ability to fight. They probably naively assumed the world powers would cease to see them as a threat if they couldn’t fight anymore.

Mikoto had no proof.

It was all speculation. And in this unusual situation, stating a guess that came to mind would only end with others asking for evidence and proof.

She couldn’t let this continue.

Mikoto scratched her head and called a name.

“Shokuhou.”

“Mental Out? Don’t bother! Kobayashi-san is Shokuhou-sama’s friend, so she would just say she looked in her mind and found she was innocent, but is that true? Who knows!”

Kongou immediately snapped at her.

As if she were afraid to have control of the conversation taken from her.

But Mikoto had successfully shifted the focus from Kobayashi to herself.

Mikoto gave a quick nod to Kobayashi who had frozen up a short distance away.

Kongou failed to notice and spoke while red in the face.

Although that flush may have come from an emotion other than anger.

“Kobayashi-san and Shokuhou-sama are in the same clique. And come to think of it, it doesn’t make sense that you, the #5, would fail to notice what was happening. Yes, that’s it. I bet it wasn’t just Kobayashi-san. The entire Shokuhou Clique was in on it!”

It wasn’t a bad argument.

With Mental Out and any psychological esper power, it was crucial to maintain the trust of those around you.

That scheming Queen would be well aware of that.

But in this case…

“That’s not possible.”

“And why not, Misaka-sama!?”

“The Shokuhou Clique is the largest group in Tokiwadai.”

“If you think being outnumbered will silence me, you are sorely mistaken!”

“It isn’t that. It’s a miracle we can run this giant carrier at all with less than 200, so what would happen if the largest clique went on strike?”

“Oh.”

Kongou froze.

That she could rationally assess that question suggested she wasn’t motivated by anger here. She was yet another victim influenced by the risk of a ballistic missile attack.

“Shokuhou wouldn’t need to order Kobayashi-san to sabotage the catapult in the night. If she raises the white flag, the carrier stops. But she didn’t do that. I don’t know who is behind the damage to the catapult’s transformer, but I am confident the Shokuhou Clique as a whole isn’t responsible.”

“…”

“So what reason does Shokuhou have to lie about what Mental Out tells her? She doesn’t have one, does she? If she did want to stop the carrier, she wouldn’t have to hide it.”

Part 4

The danger had been defused for the time being.

Work had begun on repairing the electromagnetic catapult. It might take time, but it apparently wasn’t beyond repair.

But the atmosphere inside the Izanami was unpleasant even after the sun came up.

What were things like among the teachers aboard the Izanagi?

At breakfast time, not many gathered in the restaurant they were using as a dining hall. Only a scattered few. Most of the girls grabbed what they could, gathered in small groups, and ate in different places across the ship.

Shokuhou grabbed a vegetable sandwich and breathed an exasperated sigh.

“This is your fault, Misaka-san.”

“Huh?”

“Because you brought up the possibility of the largest clique going on strike. You shouldn’t have brought up that kind of hypothetical when things were strained enough already.”

…Had that been a mistake?

It had seemed better than letting Kobayashi be attacked over a nonsense accusation.

It was possible the restaurant’s emptiness was a sign of people’s distrust in the Shokuhou Clique since they “could be hiding anywhere”. No one wanted some offhand comment to be overheard and reported on.

“It’s true we are the largest clique, but we don’t have people running every section of the Izanami. The biggest threat here is that we will tear ourselves apart – the exact same thing we used against the Empire.”

This wasn’t really about the Shokuhou Clique.

Maybe it really had been a bad idea to remind everyone that a strike was possible.

Now they couldn’t predict who would stop doing their job. That meant they couldn’t even count on this sandwich and corn pottage being available to eat tomorrow.

(A strike is meant to be paired with a demand, but there’s nothing we can do if they say they won’t work until we can ensure we’re safe from ballistic missiles.)

But…

“Then what should I have done back there? While still saving Kobayashi-san, of course.”

“ ‘We damaged the catapult as a surprise readiness test, so stop taking it so seriously. Ha ha ha.’ ”

“…”

Was that girl a demon?

The worst part was that that probably would have been fairly effective even if it was a lie.

“Truth ability isn’t the only way to save people. Isn’t that right?” Shokuhou brushed her long blonde hair off her shoulder. “Then no one would be to blame and they would all feel silly for being angry and slink off on their own. But this clueless meathead just had to turn me into everyone’s punching bag.”

An upperclassman was shrinking down shyly nearby.

It was Kobayashi.

“I-I’m so sorry my carelessness caused all this to happen.”

“What are you talking about, Kobayashi-senpai? You didn’t do anything wrong. All the blame lies with your clique leader who hadn’t prepared for that situation.”

“That’s right. The one who threw oil on the fire thinking that would extinguish it was this meathead moron here.”

“Huh?” “Huh?”

When those two glared at each other from close range, Kobayashi finally smiled a little.

“I’m so lucky to have both of Tokiwadai’s Level 5s worrying over me.”

Ultimately, the cause of the strained atmosphere aboard the Izanami wasn’t Kobayashi, Kongou, the swim team pair, or the Shokuhou Clique. Those were all minor issues.

It was the girls’ fear of the ballistic missiles.

Everyone knew what the main problem was, but no one had found a solution.

That oppressive atmosphere could drive people mad. Ordinarily, they would present a solution in order to give everyone some fresh air to breathe.

“Hey, Shokuhou.”

“What now?”

They had to discuss the fundamental issue.

In other words…

“Are we going to fight or not? And in either case, what do we do about the ballistic missiles?”

Part 5

They had gathered in the CIC.

With Shokuhou, Hokaze, and Kobayashi there, the place looked a lot like a Shokuhou Clique hangout.

“The greatest threat of a ballistic missile comes from its altitude and speed,” explained Kobayashi from her usual seat. “They are literally sent outside the atmosphere where they can travel with zero air resistance until reentry, so their speed can reach a maximum of greater than Mach 10. That altitude also puts them well outside the range of any surface anti-aircraft weaponry. Shooting them down from the surface is just about impossible.”

“Are the ballistic missiles here girls too?”

“We don’t know. But the Harpoon and air-to-air missiles we’ve seen here looked like ordinary weapons, so presumably the ballistic missiles are also ‘just weapons’ with no girliness to them.”

That was good news at least. Mikoto breathed a sigh of relief.

Ballistic flight might sound complicated, but it could be thought of like a long throw in baseball. It was just that the top of that arc left the atmosphere in this case.

To shoot it down, you had to throw a rock from the side and hit the ball before it could land in the other player’s glove.

And with perfect accuracy.

“Ballistic missile defense is split into three stages,” said Mikoto. “First, shooting the missile down between when it is launched and when it leaves the atmosphere. Second, shooting the missile down while it is flying through space. Third, shooting the missile down between space and when its warhead detonates.”

“Of those, the first has the best odds of success,” said Shokuhou. “The missile is, after all, fighting against gravity, which lowers its speed. And its altitude is low. Also, it’s just one missile – the warhead isn’t splitting up and it isn’t weaving this way and that☆”

“Really? You know better and are testing me, aren’t you? We can’t use the first stage. The ballistic missile launch bases are at the center of the continent and we can’t get close.”

“That leaves us two options.” Shokuhou waved two fingers and winked with her back against the wall. “We use stage 2 and bring down the missile in space, or we use stage 3 and bring it down after reentry.”

“The third one has problems too. The Queen touched on it already. We do have a chance of shooting down the missile if it remains in one piece throughout its descent, but if the warhead splits, if it weaves hard in the air, or if it releases aerosolized fuel over a wide area, we cannot shoot it down.”

“That means we go with stage 2. We find some way to shoot down the missile while it’s flying through space.”

That would be a challenge if the warhead did split apart while in space, but in this case, they could assume every warhead was targeted at the Izanami and Izanagi on the ocean rather than targeting several cities spread out across the map. In other words, it would be an MRV, not a MIRV. Even if it did split apart, the speed and course wouldn’t change much until reentry. If they had a way to shoot down one warhead, the same defense system in the same position would be able to bring them all down.

“But how exactly do we do it?” asked Shokuhou with a shrug.

Mikoto ignored her. Did that spoiled pair of boobs just assume Mikoto would answer anything she asked?

“Kobayashi-senpai, when you say space, how high up are we talking?”

“Medium orbit…if that’s a real term. Geosynchronous orbit is at an altitude of 36,000km and space stations orbit at an altitude of about 400km, but ballistic missiles reach an altitude between those two. Somewhere between 1000 and 3000km, I think.”

Three thousand kilometers. That height was probably longer than the Japanese archipelago.

“Civilian space planes that take off in midair go up to around 100km, right? I assumed it would be more like that…”

“That idea isn’t entirely wrong.” Kobayashi suddenly contradicted herself. “Because ballistic missiles will fall back toward the surface. They drop in altitude on their own. If you want to intercept them in space but just outside the atmosphere, you can expect to contact them lower than the space telescopes and shuttles, but higher than the ballistic space planes. So between 110 and 120km.”

That sounded more realistic than sniping them from 3000km away.

Sniping them from 120km away would still be a challenge, though.

“All we have available to us are carrier aircraft,” said Shokuhou. “At best, they can maybe reach an altitude of 25km.”

It was a simple subtraction problem.

If they were assuming the120km figure, then shooting down the ballistic missile in space would need something with range of 95km.

“But our fighters are only equipped with small air-to-air missiles. It differs by type, but those have a range of around 20km, right? That’s 75km too short. Shooting down a ballistic missile flying outside the atmosphere with that seems like too great a feat to me.”

If they had a giant strategic bomber available, they could have used an ALBM or something, but they didn’t have what they didn’t have. Not that those could be used on a carrier anyway.

“I say flying a fighter up to ultra-high orbit is a good start,” said Mikoto.

“That’s not the hard part,” said Shokuhou. “The question is what we’ll shoot once we’re up there. It would need greater speed and force than any of the air-to-air missiles we have here.”

Again, they didn’t have what they didn’t have. They would have to construct something with what was available on the Izanami and the Izanagi. So they could remove a fantastic laser weapon with 100% accuracy from their list of options.

However…

“I might just have an idea.”

“?”

Part 6

After leaving the CIC, Mikoto went in search of someone.

She started by checking the maintenance hangar.

She wanted the person who had been working on the electromagnetic catapult before dawn even arrived.

It was technically fixed, but any malfunction could get someone killed. She must have wanted to run as many tests and checks as possible. Mikoto hesitantly called out to her from a distance.

“K-Kongou-saaan?”

“Ahh!!!? What do you want when I’m so damn busy!?”

“I wanted to ask you something.”

Part 7

The sunset dyed the sky red.

The enemy hadn’t waited.

“I’m reading a large object incoming from outside the atmosphere to the north-northwest at Mach 10.5. It’s a ballistic missile from either the United States of Narmeli or the Cutalularia Republic!!”

“That’s exactly what we want!!” shouted back Mikoto in her formfitting flight suit as she ran across the maintenance hangar.

Even the best plan needed real results to gather trust.

The plan had been to use a large piece of debris or some stardust moving outside the atmosphere at greater than Mach 10, but a real ballistic missile was much appreciated in this case. If she could shoot this down and prove that a ballistic missile attack was no threat, the trouble within the Izanami would go away.

YF-22A (the giant girl in a long-sleeved black leotard) had been on standby in the maintenance hangar and her eyes widened now.

“Wh-what’s going on!?”

“It’s time to settle this. Kongou-san, prepare the Shinshin for takeoff. You aren’t going to say it isn’t ready, are you!?”

A ballistic missile was flying this way at Mach 10.5.

Every second counted.

As soon as the Shinshin two seat custom was launched from the carrier, Mikoto took action.

Specifically, she raised the sharp nose nearly vertically and accelerated as if piercing into the heavens.

She broke through the thick clouds into the empty evening sky.

The fighter rattled unnaturally. Alerts she had never seen before flashed on the monitor. She was at max speed, but a stall warning appeared. The air was so thin the main wings had nothing to slice through. It also appeared to be affecting the water fuel’s burn rate.

(Oxygen. You take it for granted, so it’s terrifying when it’s suddenly not there. Now I really feel like I’m in another world!)

Maybe they should have prepared a special oxidant to keep the water fuel burning without the oxygen from outside.

No longer was she in an orange world.

On one side, the black starry sky. On the other, a blue spherical surface.

Wasn’t the sunset an illusion created by the air refracting the light and absorbing certain wavelengths? Mikoto was reminded of that fact now that the atmosphere was so thin and she had left behind the rules of the surface.

The altimeter displayed 24,000 meters. The canopy’s exterior was freezing over.

Just a bit further.

Only 1 more kilometer. Just 1000 meters!!

“Got you.”

There was no air to limit the visual range and she was freed from the limits of the horizon, but she was still too far away to see it with the naked eye.

Still, it appeared on her radar.

The fighter’s radar could only scan out to 200km, but it could cover a much wider range when linked to the carrier’s anti-missile radar.

A monster was flying straight this way.

“Railgun 01. I’m starting.”

She suppressed the panic growing inside her.

She forced herself to ignore the engine’s whine and the coating of ice creeping across the canopy.

She only had one chance at this.

She had to make it count.

“Lock complete. Final check clear.”

An ordinary air-to-air missile wouldn’t work.

She could intercept the ballistic missile in space with an anti-air laser that could slice through any flying object at the speed of light, but she didn’t know where to get a toy like that.

But.

She could do something similar.

(I knew I could count on Kongou-san.)

If air resistance could be ignored, then this super weapon could theoretically max out at the speed of light by increasing the voltage endlessly.

The fighter’s stealth had been sacrificed to attach a 155mm caliber 19m long cannon to the top, albeit a bit to the right to ensure the canopy could still open and close.

(Not only does she have the skill to make this, but it’s just like her to get to work the instant I asked for it. Yes, none of us are the bad guy. We all just want to protect the Izanami and Izanagi so we can get back home!)

“Fire!!!”

In other words, she had an aircraft-mounted anti-ballistic-missile strategic defense railgun.

The Shinshin shook hard. It just about lost its balance at 25,000m, but Mikoto somehow managed to keep it steady.

You could think of it like a smaller and lighter version of the electromagnetic catapult.

But it was powered by Mikoto’s esper power. When she provided it an instant maximum of a billion volts, the weapon further amplified that to produce what she thought had to be a powerful weapon indeed.

What she saw seemed no different from light.

So despite firing it herself, she didn’t have time to follow it by eye.

Unlike a sniper rifle powered by gunpowder, she didn’t need to predict the target’s future position based on its distance from her.

It had already hit.

A white dot suddenly expanded into a massive explosion outside the atmosphere.

It was hard to tell at such a great distance, but that had to be more than 10km across.

It wasn’t a cluster bomb or thermobaric. It was even more destructive light.

But just before reaching its target, it had been blown away outside the planet.

She had won.

“Ksshh!! Ksssshhhh!!”

The noise over the radio was awful.

The enormous explosion in space may have rapidly compressed the magnetosphere covering the entire planet.

Come to think of it, this wouldn’t cause a magnetic storm or an electromagnetic pulse, would it?

Maybe that wasn’t a huge deal since they were over the empty ocean, but she decided to make a radar and visual check for civilian ships on her way back to the carrier. She didn’t want anyone to die adrift because their electric-controlled engines stopped and their shipboard radio couldn’t send out an SOS.

“Ksh. …gone. Railgun 01, can you hear me? This is Izanami. Early-warning radar confirms the ballistic missile is gone. You successfully intercepted the missile!!”

Even as Kobayashi’s celebratory voice reached her ears, Mikoto’s mind was far away.

She was looking at the planet.

That enormous and deep, deep blue spherical surface was floating in the dark. She could see the Y-shaped continent that differed so much from Earth. Everything felt free and equal up here, yet it also forced her to recognize that the world was finite.

Why were they doing this?

Who was devouring the limited planet?

She sighed softly.

“Railgun 01 to Izanagi and Izanami crew. How was that?”

After a short delay, a cheer burst from the radio. It reminded her of the scenes on the news after a rocket launch.

She had proven it was possible.

It would depend on the distance of course, but a ballistic missile crossing continents would take between 10 and 20 minutes from launch to impact.

So as long as they had a way to intercept it, they had plenty of time to get a fighter up in the air after detecting the launch.

The continent’s ballistic missiles were no longer a threat.

As long as they had the railgun-equipped Shinshin and the #3 to pilot it.

Part 8

The deck was abuzz with energy.

Even before the Shinshin had fully stopped on the Izanami’s landing runway, girls with eyes glittering rushed over and Mikoto felt a chill in her heart. They mobbed her once she exited the Shinshin. She felt like they were even trying to lift her up. She only had bits and pieces of memories after that. Like bottles of carbonated drinks being shaken and popped open much too close to the fighter and all its delicate equipment.

Then came the party.

And that night.

Late at night.

“Phew.”

Her stomach still felt funny, but Mikoto changed into her formfitting flight suit.

She exited her cabin and walked to the maintenance hangar.

Shokuhou was there.

“Honestly. You are so easy to read, Misaka-san.”

“Shokuhou…”

“Are you going?”

“I’d rather not, but I really don’t see any other way.”

Mikoto shrugged.

Because…

“The ballistic missiles were the prized weapons of the United States and the Republic. The ability to intercept them with 100% accuracy greatly alters the military balance. Whether they want to crush it and forget it ever existed or to steal the tech for themselves, they will do everything in their power to pursue the Shinshin Custom.”

The ballistic missiles couldn’t sink the Izanami or Izanagi, so couldn’t they just hide out at sea until the time limit arrived?

That was one idea, but it wouldn’t work.

“They can fire more than one ballistic missile at a time.”

“Right. If they fire dozens of them at once for a saturation attack, the one Shinshin won’t be able to stop them all.”

And if the railgun-equipped Shinshin remained inside the Izanami, that was the most likely outcome.

But there was a way to use this.

The United States of Narmeli and the Cutalularia Republic’s current top priority was the Shinshin and only the Shinshin.

By leaving the Izanami now, Mikoto could draw their attention.

It’s excellent stealth capability had been sacrificed to attach the extraordinary railgun, but that would let her protect Tokiwadai from the ballistic missile threat.

That had been her plan from the start.

And it had finally worked.

“…”

Of course, Mikoto had to return to Earth. If she wasn’t on the Izanami or Izanagi when the time came, she would be stranded in this world.

14 days remained.

No, 13 now.

(I will be back by the last day. I promise.)

“Oof.”

“?”

Mikoto’s thoughts were cut off.

For some reason, Shokuhou had ascended the simple gangway that resembled a pool lifeguard tower and climbed into the rear seat.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t kick you out all on your own, can I? Your meathead ability knows no bounds, so I just know you would cause trouble everywhere you went and create more and more enemies for Tokiwadai.”

Mikoto sighed.

How was she supposed process being pitied by that wicked girl?

The #3 hit the button to close the clear canopy.

“Well, if you insist.”

“Oh, you acquiesced quick. Hee hee. I bet you just want company so you won’t be lone-”

“Unlike me, you aren’t wearing a flight suit, but if you insist, I can take off like this!! Feel free to pass out since you’re only wearing your summer uniform, but don’t you dare piss yourself. If you humiliate yourself like that, I will never, ever, ever let you live it down. Good luck.”

“Um, hey, wait, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!?”

The electromagnetic catapult launched the railgun-equipped Shinshin into empty space.

Misaka Mikoto began to work on a plan while accompanied by Shokuhou (whose soul had partially left her body).

She couldn’t climb too high or attempt any high-g acrobatics. The fighter could handle it just fine, but her stomach was still stuffed from that party. The carbonation was especially concerning. If she pushed it too far now, her body might actually rupture.

But if she was careful, kept it slow, and stayed near the ocean surface, she could still fly.

Her goal was one of those Sky Pirate Islands or Sky Pirate Ports where anyone could find shelter as long as they had money.

There were still two world powers left. What could she do with the one Shinshin against the United States of Narmeli and the Cutalularia Republic? There was much to consider, but she knew this first step was the right one.

She could not rely on the Izanami or Izanagi anymore.

She would be putting them in danger if she did.

And since the Shinshin couldn’t fly forever, she needed a runway to land on and fuel to fill her tank.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki.

It was all up to the two of them.

“This is where the real challenge begins.”

Part 9

In the Izanami’s maintenance hangar, a girl in a long-sleeved black leotard cracked her eyes open while pretending to sleep.

It was YF-22A.

“…”

Depth 2: What to Protect

Part 1

They had left Carrier Izanami and Landing Ship Izanagi, but they were reluctant to visit the northern Empire after it had been struck by so many ballistic missiles. They flew the Shinshin two seat custom east and, by the time dawn arrived, Mikoto and Shokuhou had decided on their next destination.

“Adeleden Sky Pirate Port?”

“That’s right,” said Shokuhou, checking her notes while riding the fighter in her summer uniform. (She had either gotten used to it or had used Mental Out to erase her nausea.)

She had apparently jotted down a few coordinates before leaving the Izanami.

Mikoto was cautious.

“A port rather than an island? That’s on the south of the Y-shaped continent, so isn’t it part of the Cutalularia Republic mainland?”

“It’s the last place they’ll think to look. Either way, we can hide out at any of the sky pirate locations. And while they could bomb an island without any backlash, the military has to worry about the civilians watching when it’s part of the mainland. So this is actually safer.”

“If you say so.”

Mikoto decided to leave all this plotting to the scheming Queen.

The Sky Pirate Port wasn’t hard to spot. A few transport planes (which were of course giant girls) could be seen landing at a crude airfield in the jungle, but the process was a mess compared to an official air force. They were probably helping smuggle contraband or people into the country.

“It’s a miracle they aren’t colliding with each other…”

Astonished, Mikoto set the radio channel and contacted the control tower. She descended toward a flashing light on the ground and landed on a 3000m runway. That length actually felt new to her. Without the wire, she decelerated slowly and she was afraid she was going to slip. The open view around her felt really weird.

…No, maybe the hellish combination of landing in a gap between buildings on a 300m runway rocking from the waves had been the weird part. Mikoto stared into the distance. Had she gotten started all wrong?

“You new here?” asked a bearded man who had helped with the landing process.

A group of what looked like guards approached.

Maybe stolen from some military or another, a pair of (gloomy track suit girl) SIDAM 25 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns stood on thick continuous tracks at either side, aiming – just a bit – this way to keep the Shinshin from taking off from the grass.

(Now, then.)

Mikoto opened the canopy, stood from the Shinshin’s cockpit, and looked down at the man standing on the ground.

“We’re customers. We’re only here to rent a hangar to hide this and for some fuel. Oh, and we have water fuel in our tank, so if you use gasoline-based JP-4, make sure to empty the tank before filling it back up. We haven’t using any ammo, so we don’t need any.”

She had carelessly mixed fuel types when refueling from the Imperial air tanker and it had worked out fine, but it was still better to play it safe.

“Can you pay?”

The bearded man was straight and to the point.

Fuel, repairs, supplies, storage, modifications, investigation, food, lodging, entertainment, survival, and more.

The Sky Pirate Port was convenient, but everything cost money.

And it was doubtful this world accepted Japanese yen.

Mikoto was as casual as could be.

“Shokuhou, how about you pawn that brand-name bag?”

“That isn’t funny!!”

Shokuhou hurriedly protected the bag with her body, but she also pulled out something else.

“I happen to have money we can use. You are set up to accept e-money, I hope?”

“Your phone?” asked Mikoto, frowning.

Was Shokuhou going to sell her high-quality Academy City mobile device instead of her bag?

“We couldn’t use them while out at sea, but now that we’re on land and the signals from the antenna bases can reach us, we can use our phones like normal. I registered with a fake name and started trading, and I have already earned some of this world’s stocks and crypto-assets.”

(Oh, but wait…)

Mikoto realized something, but ignorant Shokuhou waved her smartphone to show off all the zeroes on the screen.

The blonde Queen winked.

“Now, now. This should prove our ability to pay. So if you would kindly let us hide the Shinshin before- huh?”

The men wordlessly drew machetes.

Did that girl not realize what it meant for this to be a Sky Pirate Port?

The men must have decided they would make more money stealing all of that money than by engaging in an honest deal. She could have only paid the necessary amount, but that idiot just had to show off how much she had.

Mikoto silenced them all (including the track suit self-propelled anti-aircraft guns a short distance away) by firing a Railgun warning shot.

“Okay, people. You aren’t so stupid you aren’t familiar with the idea that money doesn’t do you any good dead, right!? We said we’ll pay, so get to work to earn that pay. If you do anything other than what we’ve asked, we’ll consider that a betrayal and defend ourselves. So what’ll it be?”

Part 2

They needed to hide themselves to some extent.

From the enemy and from the Izanami and Izanagi. They couldn’t have the Izanami joining them after working so hard to divert the Cutalularia Republic and United States of Narmeli’s attention away from them.

Of course, Shirai, Hokaze, and the rest would likely run a search within flight range of the Izanami. They couldn’t have the Shinshin visible from the air.

That was why they couldn’t compromise with a jungle runway or parking lot and had to rent a roofed hangar.

“Phew…”

Mikoto sighed softly after changing into a swimsuit.

It was a pink one piece with frills in places.

She had bought that with money too.

The sun shined in a sky so blue it looked like a bluescreen for chroma keying.

13 days remained.

With the threat of ballistic missiles mostly eliminated, Mikoto stared up into the sky and thought.

They had less than two weeks left.

The Liheilstaut Empire could no longer function, but the world was still a dangerous place. Was there anything she could do to eliminate that pressure?

“…”

Mikoto was in the Adeleden Sky Pirate Port, which was located in a coastal jungle at the south of the continent. Boxy concrete roofs stuck up from the deep green in places. An airfield runway had been paved directly on the beach and the sandy ocean bottom had been dug out to allow warship (girls) to dock at a temporary port. Around all that, the tunnel of dense trees hid hundreds if not thousands of small houses and shops made from containers or bungalows.

Of course, those trees didn’t seem like enough to prevent aerial detection of such a large facility.

Most likely, whoever was in charge was paying off the soldiers to keep quiet about it.

Mikoto looked down at her frilly swimsuit.

“Was this really necessary?”

“Of course☆ When going undercover, you need to wear what the locals wear. Everyone would know we don’t belong if we wore our Tokiwadai uniforms or that flight suit.”

Shokuhou, who wore a gaudy bikini, said this while viewing the small destroyers (eyepatch girls) who were docked at the temporary port and were now being used as work boats for illegal undersea mining. …That exhibitionist idiot just wanted to show off her own body, didn’t she? Mikoto was pretty sure the whole thing would come off if they ran into trouble and had to start running. Just slip right off of her.

“So what now?” asked Mikoto.

“We have two options. First, we hop from Sky Pirate Port to Sky Pirate Port, doing everything we can to keep outside of Hokaze-san and the others’ search range. Second, we stay in one Sky Pirate Port and search out information.”

“Search it out how?”

“This place is full of delinquent and runaway soldiers from the Empire, Republic, and United States, so it might be loaded with rumors related to the weaknesses of the world powers.”

Of course, even if someone here was hiding some important secret, they wouldn’t let it slip so easily. But the two of them each had a way of cheating.

Misaka Mikoto could neutralize any electronic lock or password to steal data from computers and mobile devices.

Shokuhou Misaki could read people’s minds or the residual thoughts they left on objects to steal their secrets.

Mikoto had already known the answer even as she asked the question.

…If they could find some kind of Achilles heel they could threaten the world powers with, they could keep Shirai and the others safe.

“Let’s start by gathering all the information we can here in Adeleden. We can escape whenever we need to.”

“Sounds good to me☆”

And so it was time to gather information.

If they only wanted to extract whatever they could, it would be best to head somewhere crowded.

They got right to it.

“Apparently the Cutalularia Republic’s hot climate means it has the fewest buried Frozen Fossils out of the world powers.”

“?”

Shokuhou had said “apparently”.

It wasn’t clear whose mind she had read while passing them by in this crowd, but she whispered to Mikoto while walking the underground city in a gaudy bikini and with a remote in hand.

“So they’ve only managed to keep up with the Empire and United States by making more efficient use of the limited materials they can find deep in caves. They use low corporate tax rates to attract large corporations and then absorb all their technology.”

“That system sounds like it would cause a lot of problems…”

“Of course it does. They have more than 30 groups who came from outside the country, so their people have a mix of origins and ethnicities. You can’t except them to have much in the way of patriotism or national identity for the Republic.”

According to Shokuhou, Cutalularia called itself a Republic, but all of that mess meant they hadn’t been able to decide on a prime minister or president for a long time.

So they instead had a “director” who led the country in an interim capacity.

It was probably to avoid running afoul of any ethnic conflict, but that title didn’t sound much like a politician. Still, that was apparently who was at the top.

“if they recruited soldiers, they would end up with different internal groups forming and fighting each other, so they have instead worked on advancing the use of unmanned weapons.”

…Unmanned weapons. The Academy City ones had been able to attack the surface from the sky and even dogfight in a way that would make an acrobatic pilot go pale in the face, but how advanced was that technology in this world?

“But wait. Don’t the Girlish Weapons already think for themselves and fight on their own? What good is turning them into drones?”

“Don’t ask me.”

That mental maze was cut off by the yelling voice of a young woman in a bikini, miniskirt, and a pirate like hate and eyepatch.

“I’ve got some real bargains for you here! This isn’t like that rusty junk you’ll find on the online auctions. I’ve got a Centauro II and a Rafale that were damaged and abandoned after a collision during a transport job in the Republic! How did I get my hands on them!? We’ll all be a lot happier if you just don’t ask that! This quality for this price isn’t something you’re going to find every day! Any takers!?”

An eight-wheeled vehicle with a big gun and a delta wing fighter (both shaped like giant girls) were being sold in the market like it was normal.

“Ugh, I hate being an imposition. I hope I can find regular work soon.”

“Who wants to be my next master?”

Mikoto recoiled at first, thinking she was seeing human trafficking, but the Girlish Weapons looked unbothered and made no attempt to escape. It looked more like the giant girls were searching for their next employer.

Mikoto pretended to be inspecting the human-sized guns and giant Girlish Weapons while she actually copied the contents of the arms dealers’ computers onto her phone. Surreptitiously, of course. Nothing could stop her thanks to her power to directly control electricity.

It looked like those arms dealers primarily dealt in Girlish Weapons. Selling handguns, ammunition, and other human-use weapons was considered gang work while it was the professionals who sold armored trucks, attack helicopters, and such (all shaped like giant girls, of course).

But…

“Hm? There’s a lot these files don’t cover.”

“I’m not a weirdo freak like you who can directly read the 0s and 1s straight from the semiconductors, so you’re going to have to use your words ability to share that information with me.”

The arms merchants’ laptops and tablets contained several manuals and texts on the maintenance and use of the Girlish Weapons, but there was nothing explaining what exactly the crucial Frozen Fossils were. It was like finding a lot of information brushing up on the topic, but nothing on the topic itself.

After hearing that explanation, Shokuhou (in a bikini that made it look like she had lost a bet) put a hand on her hip in exasperation.

“Or maybe not even the people who use the Girlish Weapons know what they are.”

“Is that possible?”

“You fought alongside the captured fighters, didn’t you? But can you explain what exactly a Girlish Weapon is? You don’t need to be able to provide a fundamental definition if all you’re doing is using them.”

Yeah, that was true.

But the Girlish Weapons were made from military cells, which were extracted from the Frozen Fossils dug up from the ground. Frozen Fossils, some kind of natural frozen meat, were the most crucial resource for building the tanks, fighters, and warships needed to win the struggle for supremacy over the continent.

The frozen part made sense.

But what exactly were they fossils of?

Part 3

The sun had set and night had fallen.

Stars studded the sky, but it was still warm enough to walk around in their swimsuits. In fact, they would have been suffering in their ordinary clothing.

“But,” said Mikoto while walking freely in the underground city hidden below the palm trees.

Frozen Fossils.

Military cells.

Girlish Weapons.

“We found some curious information, but nothing like an Achilles heel that could immediately bring the United States of Narmeli or the Cutalularia Republic to their knees.”

“We aren’t going to get that lucky right away. So how about we relax and get something to eat? There are a lot of people gathered there now, so we might find some new information.”

Shokuhou tugged on Mikoto’s arm and pointed with her other hand. Mikoto looked over to see a bunch of small food stands.

Frilly swimsuit Mikoto sighed.

“I’m surprised.”

“You are? You can see how they prepare the food here. So much better than some award-winning restaurant with a professional sign out front that could be using who-knows-what kinds of chemical seasonings back in the kitchen☆”

This world’s money felt like a toy and Mikoto barely felt like she was actually spending anything, but she did appreciate being able to order enough to cover a table with only a few coins.

As for the flavor…hmm.

Mikoto tried some and looked skeptically down at the spoon.

She couldn’t really call it good or bad. She just wasn’t used to this kind of flavor.

It was like going to a gyoza place and finding the little plate of soy sauce had whipped cream or chocolate ganache on it.

Yes…

“Is it just me or is everything here sweet? This one seems a lot like curry, but it has a ton of something like peanut butter in it.”

“Hot countries always use sweet foods to replenish their body’s nutrients. Meat is usually boiled in coconut milk or glazed in honey and grilled. Mmm, soft shell crab☆”

The Queen looked surprisingly blissful after taking a bite. She held a hand to her cheek and grinned. She must have been kicking her feet under the table because she sometimes hit Mikoto’s shins, which hurt.

In her mind, anything that didn’t have artificial colors or preservatives gained a two star buff. Strong spices were A-OK with her.

“There’s a secret United States weapons factory below Ghost Town.”

“The Republic’s new transport plane project’s engine isn’t working out.”

“The top brass have been taking bribes. Yeah, in the Republic.”

“The United States covered up the accusations that one of their government workers is a spy.”

“A United States submarine’s detection specs aren’t as great as their propaganda claimed, so you can apparently pass right through the strait.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou enjoyed a tropical-style sweet meal while speaking back and forth as if holding a conversation.

Each and every statement was powerful enough to get the related politicians or military officers fired, but that was really all it would do.

They were up against world powers.

The entire Republic and United States.

They could reveal an individual’s indiscretion or mistake, but the fired official would be quickly replaced and the government itself would continue on like nothing had happened.

“None of it would be decisive enough,” said Shokuhou.

“We need something that can directly cause a war. …Urp, so sweet!?”

The food was sweet and the drinks were too. After taking a sip of a white drink that tasted like a mixture of room temperature milk, yogurt, and condensed milk, Mikoto gave her glass a second look. It wasn’t bad. But with something that sweet, a sake cup of it would be enough. An entire glass was too much. It felt so thick going down.

Shokuhou (who could eat any number of eclairs) had no trouble gulping hers down.

“Misaka-saaan, did you notice a few people with a professional look in their eyes during the day?”

“The ones who looked like spies?”

“Right, them. I bet they’re here to search out any Imperial, Republic, and United States traitors who are hiding out here. Which means they’ll have been gathering information here a lot longer than we have.”

So when Shokuhou was wandering around during the day, had she been searching out special targets instead of hoping to find classified information in the minds of random passersby?

“I’ve found a few good candidates, so let’s focus on them tomorrow. That should give us most of the information there is to find here.”

(And if we don’t find anything useful there, we’ll have no reason to stay in Adeleden.)

They finished eating.

They had been introduced to an inn, but the cheap motel’s lock was far from safe. In fact, it easily broke when Mikoto gave the door a testing kick. They felt like they might get some unwelcome nighttime visitors if they stayed in the inn, so Mikoto and Shokuhou grabbed a pillow and blanket each and curled up in the especially sturdy aircraft hangar.

Fortunately, there were a few old sofas in one corner.

“Misaka-saaan.”

“What?”

“Can we keep the bug zapper on?”

She shut it off and went to sleep.

Part 4

From there, they spent a few days focusing on the professional spies.

But instead of wearing black suits and sunglasses, these spies looked like restaurant waitresses or gas station part-timers.

They seemed to have chosen jobs and positions with high turnover so the locals wouldn’t question speaking with a newcomer.

That said, Mikoto and Shokuhou’s powers meant they didn’t have to participate in the spy games.

Just by approaching them in a crowd, Mikoto could snag all the data in their electronics and Shokuhou could directly steal the information in their heads.

“Hm, hm.”

The financial markets were rocky after the loss of the Empire in the west, so the Republic in the south was concerned that all of their 30+ foreign corporations could collapse.

The United States in the east had the most Frozen Fossils, but that did them little good since they lacked the technology to process them.

“So just because they can’t grow crops in the permafrost, the States ends up being attacked by Girlish Weapons made from the very Frozen Fossils they sold to the other countries?”

A lot of it was fascinating, but none of it was critical enough to immediately stop the launch of more ballistic missiles.

That morning, Mikoto and Shokuhou had seen a pair of F-2As flying overhead. Mechanical aircraft F-2As, not Girlish Weapons.

Was that Shirai and Hokaze?

Apparently the Izanami was still nearby.

They were accompanied by a YF-23 and F-23B. Had those two been recovered from the ocean?

“If they are following witness accounts, they will land here,” said Mikoto. “Maybe they figured out what we were thinking.”

“Maybe we should move on to the next Sky Pirate Port or Island soon.”

Hopefully the others wouldn’t have predicted that too. Nothing would be sillier than trying to avoid them only to run right into them.

“But where should we go next?”

“Either Wellslake Sky Pirate Port 900km south of here or Halborn Sky Pirate Island 1200km north-northwest of here. But Halborn would mean approaching the central mountain range – the permanent no man’s land between the three countries which is filled with missile silos. Security will be tighter there.”

“Then the more obvious choice would be Wellslake. But Kuroko and the others could probably predict that…”

Mikoto considered it for a bit.

And come to think of it…

“Actually, is it really true that the three countries kept all their missile silos in the central mountain range? Even if they were creating a permanent no man’s land that no one can conquer even with ten thousand years to work at it, that’s the front line. It sounds crazy.”

“That shows it’s all for show at this point. No matter how it started, the three world powers will never make a direct attack on each other like that. Which created a shared idea that they should make good use of that “extra land”.”

“But what if some country physically occupied the missile silos for all three world powers?”

“They would still need authorization codes from two of them. And who would be stupid enough to authorize a missile launch targeting their own country? Physically occupying the silo wouldn’t get you much, so they decided there’s nothing to worry about.”

Even so.

…This really was another world. The order of inventions and the path of history were different, so maybe they viewed nukes and missiles differently. They didn’t view nuclear weapons as much of a threat, maybe because they had been invented here but fortunately had never been used in war.

“So it’s time to move on, is it?”

“I’m not saying we should land on the highway, but with Hokaze-san and Shirai-san making an appearance, don’t you think we should consider using something other than a runway?”

“Are you serious?”

“No, because I certainly don’t want to crash because we blow a high-pressure tire or have a plastic bag melt inside the air intake. But if we could make those two think we were trying something like that, it would increase the number of wrong answers they’re looking at, making it easier for us to get away.”

To do that, they would have to leave behind some (fake) information before leaving. Shirai’s Judgment training would have her follow certain procedures when gathering information, so that would be easy to take advantage of.

(It isn’t necessary, but maybe we should buy an IR or radar ILS receiver and maybe an extra air intake filter at one of the shops around here. If we were pushy about haggling, the shop owners would remember us. I just know Kuroko will ask around at the shops.)

Just as Mikoto had settled on a plan to prepare for leaving, something else happened.

“Everything’s half off. You expect me to actually work on such a joyous day? I want to close up shop early!!”

“Beer’s on the house today!! C’mon, everyone, come get a drink!!”

“Anyone need a rapid charge station for your phone? You wouldn’t want to find you can’t take photos or videos during the celebration, would you!?”

The street suddenly filled with energy.

Only Mikoto and Shokuhou failed to adapt and were left looking around.

“Is this some kind of festival? This is part of the Republic, so is it a national holiday?” asked Mikoto.

“But why would it start partway through the morning like this?” asked Shokuhou.

The two of them exchanged a glance.

This seemed strange.

Mikoto tried asking a friendly-looking hawker.

“Hey, mister. Is today some kind of celebration?”

“Of course it is.” The man grinned. “This place might be a Sky Pirate Port, but we’re still part of Cutalularia. Maybe it’s wrong when we’re a bunch of ruffians who refuse to take a side most of the time, but it’s still a cause for celebration.”

So it was a Republic thing?

Mikoto wasn’t sure she liked where this was headed.

“I mean, the Republic’s invincible Offense Fleet is back after its voyage around the planet! Today we’re looking to the western sea and celebrating!!”

The Republic’s invincible Offense Fleet.

A voyage around the planet.

Returning from the western sea.

“Oh, no,” muttered Mikoto under her breath.

The Izanagi and Izanagi were in the sea west of here. And this invincible fleet was coming from further out at sea.

So it would run into them.

If the Izanami and Izanagi tried to keep their distance from the Offense Fleet by escaping eastward, they would instead be approaching the Republic. They would be trapped between the two sides. Run or not, they would eventually come in contact with the primary Republic force and end up in a battle.

“That sounds like really bad news to me!!”

Part 5

The Cutalularia Republic’s invincible Offense Fleet.

Even though the Izanami was camouflaged, it probably couldn’t sneak past that fleet by pretending to be a cruise ship. After its skirmishes with the world powers, they would have aerial photos of the ship’s appearance and they had probably recorded the acoustic signature of its propellers.

Mikoto clenched her teeth.

(All the more reason I wish we hadn’t immediately given ourselves away with that SOS. We completely wasted the benefits of the camouflage. If we had known we would be up against every world power here, we could have made more use of it even if we would be found out eventually.)

Shipboard aircraft and warships. Mikoto and Shokuhou would have to deal with enemies in the air and sea if they were to protect the Izanami and Izanagi.

“So much for hiding out. Misaka-san, prepare the Shinshin. This is all meaningless if the Izanami is destroyed.”

“I hate to interrupt your motivation, Shokuhou, but what will you do? Are you going to ride the fighter in your swimsuit or summer uniform?”

“I will be wearing a flight suit, obviously. I just need to go buy one from one of the arms dealers real quick!!”

That was the obvious answer.

Or it would be on Earth.

“I doubt they sell flight suits for humans in a world that uses Girlish Weapons. Did you forget that the Izanami and Shinshin are the products of some world other than ours or this one?”

“…”

Trembling, Shokuhou gave her the puppy dog eyes.

With tears forming in the corners of those eyes.

(Ugh, what a pain. I should really just abandon her here to-)

“Wait, Misaka-san! I’ll do anything, so please anything but riding the fighter without any protection at all!!”

Shokuhou grabbed at Mikoto, crying for real now. The #5 must have finally remembered that there was someone her tearful “feel sorry for me” beam didn’t work on.

Not wanting to deal with someone clinging to her in the already hot tropical climate, Mikoto made an alternative suggestion.

“…I do have a spare flight suit.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“I-it’s so tight!! Ugh, I can barely breathe. Is this some kind of prank, Misaka-saaan!?”

“Huh? That’s weird. My legs and butt fit in it just fine.”

“I was talking about my boobs.”

Anyway, it was time to take off.

Mikoto wanted to get in the air as soon as possible.

Adeleden Sky Pirate Port would accept anyone from anywhere, but the festivities proved that the Republic was still influential there. The people here were practically throwing a parade for the returning Offense Fleet, so if those cheerful partiers discovered Mikoto and Shokuhou were about to go battle that fleet, they might block the runway.

The Shinshin raced down the long, long runway and the aircraft left the ground. The landing gear were stored within the fuselage.

“Shokuhou, if you have nothing better to do, monitor the radar.”

“Based on the size of the readings, the Offense Fleet appears to contain one nuclear-powered carrier, one large repair ship, five cruisers, eight destroyers, and three other small ships. Maybe tankers?”

“So it really is a big fleet.”

“To be clear, that is only what I can see on radar. Given the size of the repair ship, it probably also works as a submarine supply carrier.”

So was the fleet spread out below the surface of the water too?

And even the relatively small destroyers would be a major boss battle for a single fighter.

How much could they even accomplish with the weapons aboard the Shinshin?

“How far is the Offense Fleet from the Izanami and Izanagi?”

“They’re facing each other down from about 300km apart in the western ocean. But the Izanami is being pushed back. If they move any further east, they will probably be spotted by the mainland’s radar ability and interceptors could be sent out.”

Mikoto doubted the fighter’s radar was enough to tell all that over such a wide area. Shokuhou was apparently intercepting the encrypted transmissions being sent through the air.

“That’s pretty close. Not enough to directly use quick-firing guns or anti-ship missiles, but well within range of carrier aircraft.”

The Offense Fleet had been quick to react.

The Shinshin had excellent stealth, but it had a 19m railgun forcibly attached. It would be fully visible on enemy radar.

“There they are.”

“Yes, they have fighters up already.”

The enemy had sent out canard delta wing Rafales (maids whose wings spread outwards from their hips down in a way that looked like a long skirt when they held their legs together) and Eurofighters (storybook princesses whose dresses were formed in the same way).

Mikoto still couldn’t see the Offense Fleet itself. Given the location of the cluster of dots on the radar, it was probably more than 50km away. The fighters had likely been sent in to shoot down the Shinshin before it reached the fleet.

They couldn’t afford to waste time on a small number of fighters.

A full-sized nuclear-powered carrier would be loaded with dozens of them. More and more would be launched if nothing was done. And they didn’t have time to battle all of those fighters.

So…

“We’ve gotta attack the carrier before it can launch all its fighters!!”

“Anything other than an electromagnetic catapult needs to charge after each launch, but even then, it’s going to be a race against time.”

Ordinarily, there wasn’t much chance of a single fighter sinking a fully-equipped warship. It simply wouldn’t have enough firepower. The warships would be equipped with long-range anti-air missiles and several (girl) fighters were already in the air, so even approaching the fleet was going to be a challenge.

But things were different here.

Mikoto had the railgun she had used to shoot down a ballistic missile in space.

It was meant to be fired in ultra-high altitude to intercept a ballistic missile with perfect accuracy.

Based on what she had seen before, its range probably reached several hundred kilometers.

So if she ascended far enough that the horizon wouldn’t be in the way and fired it down towards the fleet, she could strike the central carrier from outside the range of the Aegis ship’s anti-air missiles. The projectile would be moving much too fast for the close-in defense Gatling guns to shoot it down.

Even on a sunny day, the air wasn’t perfectly transparent. The naked eye could only see about 20km.

Mikoto still couldn’t see the giant girl warship, but that may have been for the best.

She wouldn’t hesitate.

“Targeting the Offense Fleet flagship – the nuclear-powered carrier.”

She locked on by radar and fired the mounted railgun toward the side of the carrier.

“Fire!!”

Something exploded close by.

“Wha-!!?”

The Shinshin shook hard. Something seemed off about Mikoto’s vision and she realized the fighter had stalled. She immediately yanked on the control column to raise the nose and zip just off the ocean surface. If she hadn’t, the sharp nose would have plunged into the sea and the fighter would have been smashed to pieces.

Shokuhou struggled to breathe in the rear seat.

“Cough. Was that a shockwave? …Yes, a shockwave. You were so high up there was barely any air last time, but in normal atmosphere it compressed the air only for it to burst right in front of us!!”

Fortunately, the railgun barrel itself hadn’t been blown away.

“Misaka-san, a Rafale is coming. It has another two behind it! Get out of their way!!”

“(Come to think of it, what can this out-of-shape girl even accomplish onboard a fighter? It just kind of happened, but what was I thinking letting that dead weight on the Shinshin? She isn’t good for anything other than sex appeal.)”

“Please stop staring into the middle distance! You’re holding the control column, so you need to face reality!!”

As the Shinshin skimmed across the ocean surface, its nose suddenly pointed straight up.

By grabbing at the air with the entire aircraft, it rapidly braked and the Rafales approaching from behind overshot it.

That was Pugachev’s cobra.

And the Shinshin was capable of locking onto multiple targets at once.

(Oops. Wait. I need to save the missiles for attacking the ships.)

Mikoto was calm enough to consider such things.

She fired the autocannon from behind, the light of the tracer rounds pursuing a Rafale until she tore through the left leg half of the delta wing.

The Rafale fell into the ocean.

“One got away. But pursuing the carrier comes first!! …? Shokuhou, why are you so quiet all of a sudden?”

“Ugh, blehh.”

Even a specialized flight suit only made sure you didn’t pass out. It didn’t reduce the strain to nothing.

“M-Misaka-san, are you a massless hologram who isn’t bound by gravity?”

“All that excess fat at your chest and butt are increasing your inertial damage multiplier. Besides, you’re the one who told me to shake them. Oh, a Eurofighter is coming from the right, so this is going to get rough. About three times more than before.”

“…”

“Hm? Hey, wait, Shokuhou! Get your hand off of that ejection lever!!”

The lever clunked as it moved, but the ejection device did not activate. If Mikoto wasn’t using her control over electricity to control every last wire inside the Shinshin, this would all have ended with her ally’s betrayal.

Shokuhou’s head slumped to the side in the rear seat.

“Wh-why did I ever get in this deathtrap?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time?”

Ignoring the Queen now that she had stopped resisting, Mikoto juked sharply to the sides to confuse the Eurofighter approaching from behind. When the Eurofighter failed to keep up with the weaving turns and her course diverged from the Shinshin’s, Mikoto began a sharp counterattack.

This time, Mikoto swiftly got on the enemy’s tail.

The autocannon tore up the princess’s storybook dress, partially undressing her, and sent her down into the ocean. Maybe it was the speed and maybe it was the angle, but the 20m girl bounced off the water a few times and passed right by the Izanami.

Mikoto’s Shinshin flew above the familiar Izanami at full speed.

“…”

(The Izanami and Izanagi are still fine. I swear I’ll keep them that way!!)

A loud missile lock alert sounded.

The lock came from the Offense Fleet up ahead.

This wasn’t like with a fighter. The radar screen was filled with dots. That meant 20-30 anti-air missiles had been launched at once. It was basically a small fireworks show at this point.

But the ones fired from out ahead weren’t anything to fear.

They would pass each other by in an instant.

Mikoto swung the Shinshin around and actually approached the enemy Rafale pursuing from behind. The IFF safety would prevent the anti-air missiles from detonating near friendly aircraft, so they passed on by despite recognizing the Shinshin.

Mikoto shot down the Rafale maid with her autocannon and then approached the Offense Fleet while skimming just off the water’s surface.

She could see them with the naked eye now.

Several 200m girls were floating on their backs as if doing the backstroke.

The joints and thick metal arms attached to their backs had to be hidden below the water, so their weapons were lined up along the bridge, vertical missile launchers, and other equipment spread out past their arms to give them a ship-like silhouette.

Mikoto flew past the destroyer in the lead and sharply avoided a cruiser to continue on in. The cruiser launched anti-air missiles and rockets as she passed by, but couldn’t hit the Shinshin.

Another warship girl lamented nearby. She was a supply ship – aka, a navy paradise loaded with hens that laid eggs daily, milk, and other foods.

“Ahh, I’m so unlucky. I can’t even fight, but they still send me to the front line? They must hate me. Oh, and now the enemy has a lock on me…”

“Ehhh!? Why would they be going after you!? Protect her! Protect her our favorite depressed girl! If all our food is sunk, fleet morale will drop to the ocean floor with her!!”

The view changed with dizzying speed. Not even Mikoto could keep track of it all as she held the control column.

She only had so many missiles.

She was around 300m from the largest ship: the nuclear-powered carrier. Sinking just that one would be a challenge.

But without taking out the carrier, the sky would be filled with dozens of fighters.

A wall towered up like a cliff face.

That was the carrier’s bow. Or in this case, the top of a backstroke girl’s giant head.

The Shinshin was approaching the giant body from a diagonal angle. On either side, something like a flat carrier deck floated in the water, but Mikoto needed to prioritize something else.

(The landing runways can wait. I need to take out the launching catapult!!)

“Air-to-air missiles can’t blast a hole in that thick carrier!!” warned Shokuhou.

“I just have to keep the fighters from launching!!”

Mikoto pulled up a bit to fly directly above the carrier girl. She selected an air-to-air missile. The carrier appeared to use a bit of an older style system than the Izanami, but Mikoto still managed to spot the catapult. Instead of launching the missile, it felt like placing it in the air.

On a carrier’s deck, even a 5mm screw could lead to a major accident. When launching a 15-20 ton mass at more than 250 km/h, any mistake could cause a disaster on the deck from the kinetic energy alone.

Mikoto forcibly placed a few air-to-air missiles on the flat deck.

As soon as the Shinshin had passed by, the missiles exploded behind her.

“Eek, I’m falling!”

“Oh, no, no! I need something to grab onto! Noooo!”

The Rafales (maids that formed a delta wing when they held their legs together) waiting their turn on the deck were overpowered by the blast and the tilting of the carrier, so they slid off the port side and into the sea.

Mikoto doubted a surface explosion alone would sink the carrier itself, but the area around the catapult was now littered with small fragments and garbage. No matter how many dozens of fighters were waiting inside the carrier, they could no longer take off.

“I just hope they don’t have any VTOL craft.”

“Even if they do, they can’t take off so easily with all that chaos and the fire fighting team rushing around.”

But it wasn’t over yet.

The carrier could no longer attack, but the rest of the Offense Fleet was still there.

After the Shinshin left the Offense Fleet, Mikoto made a large U-turn to face the fleet again.

“What now?” asked Shokuhou.

“Our priority is the remaining Rafales and Eurofighters. There aren’t many, but there are enough to defeat us.”

“The destroyers and cruisers seem like a threat to the Izanami and Izanagi to me.”

“But between sea and air, air wins.”

Something flew in from the east.

Two (non-girl) F-2As were rapidly approaching just off the ocean surface.

Piloted by Shirai and Hokaze.

The Japanese-made F-2A had originally been developed to protect the sky and sea. That made it perfect for attacking ships. It could even directly attack an enemy ship from a distance of 150km.

A single Shinshin could only do so much with its autocannon and missiles. And the mounted railgun was useless in the ordinary atmosphere.

There was only one way to win this.

To clean up the sky before the enemy fighters could interrupt the F-2As.

Instead of approaching the Offense Fleet, the F-2As launched air-to-ship missiles to target the destroyers and cruisers from quite far away.

The enemy appeared to notice the missiles skimming just above the ocean surface, but their close-in defense Gatling guns didn’t seem capable of shooting them down.

The missiles pierced into the ships and exploded. Even the carrier took more damage.

Mikoto switched on her radio.

“Railgun 01 to Teleport 02. You don’t have to sink them all. Once you’ve reduced their numbers enough, ask for their surrender. There should also be plenty of submarines below the surface, so keep your guard up even if they appear to raise the white flag. Always keep a lock on the carrier flagship.”

“But, Misaka-saaan. There are still a few Rafales and Eurofighters left.”

“Have you considered their fuel and flight range? Their carrier is partially in flames, so they have no runway to land on even if they win. If the Izanami offers to let them land there, they should do what they’re told.”

It looked like they had protected the Izanami and Izanagi.

Mikoto sighed softly.

“Railgun 01 to Teleport 02. I’m leaving. Don’t try to follow me.”

“Onee-sama!”

“If the United States and Republic join forces, they can launch a nuclear warhead at any time. Their primary focus is the Shinshin. If I land on the Izanami, they’ll attack us all at once with a ballistic missile. No matter where on the planet we are. So this is the only-”

“Izanami to all fighters. …No, wait, Railgun 01. Something isn’t right.”

“?”

Mikoto was puzzled, but then she heard a voice from a different angle.

From Shokuhou Misaki.

“What…is that? Misaka-san, something like a long horizontal wall is approaching from the north.”

“Uh. Railgun 01 to Izanami and Izanagi!! Attention, everyone! Grab onto something! There’s a big wave incoming. All crew on the carrier deck needs to get inside and shut the waterproof doors!! The wave is more than 10m, so anyone on the deck will be swept overboard!!”

“The continent’s central mountain range…is gone?” said Kobayashi from the Izanami. “All the missile silos have been destroyed. From below. And something…something enormous is crawling out!!”

Was that what had caused the wave?

But what could eliminate missile silos designed to withstand a nuclear attack along with the mountain range around them?

And what did it mean…

…that something enormous…

…was crawling out!?

Part 6

Thoooom!!!

Something emerged.

As if crawling out from the depths of the planet below the collapsed missile silos.

It was a colossal…humanoid hand.

Part 7

Misaka Mikoto had viewed it wrong from the start.

She had the wrong idea of why Earth’s fighters and warships had been replaced by girls.

This was another world.

The fundamental rules were different.

What were Girlish Weapons?

What were military cells?

What were the Frozen Fossils?

And most fundamentally of all, what had been frozen to create those fossils?

“It’s her.”

YF-22A aborted her pursuit of a remaining Eurofighter as the Izanami’s last line of defense.

The ultimate fighter so proud of her stealth and mobility stared into the distance and spoke quietly to herself.

With fear in her voice.

“She’s here.”

Depth 1: Countdown Zero

Part 1

The situation had changed.

With the area containing all of the missile silos collapsed, the United States of Narmeli and the Cutalularia Republic could no longer launch a ballistic missile attack at any time. There was no more reason for Mikoto’s railgun-equipped Shinshin to stay away from the Izanami and Izanagi.

So Mikoto landed on the carrier.

She didn’t have time to change out of her flight suit.

The Izanami was complete chaos inside. The dorm manager and teachers appeared to be not interfering to confusing matters further.

“The transmissions from the continent are all confused.” Kobayashi gesticulated as she explained. “Neither the States nor the Republic seem to know what’s happening. They suddenly lost the missile silos which were so crucial to their overall strategy, so now they appear to be suspecting each other and throwing accusations back and forth.”

“…”

Not even the world powers knew.

So even though this phenomenon came from this world, the people here didn’t have all the answers.

Or.

Had the accurate information been lost somewhere in the course of history?

What if that thing had been buried deep below the central mountain range and the three world powers had originally built their no man’s land to seal it in there?

But a happy age of peace had lasted too long, awareness of the threat had faded, and the information had been lost. And once the purpose of the mountain range was forgotten, they began building important facilities like the missile silos there.

Mikoto had no proof, but that was her guess as to what happened.

That thing was clearly crucial information that would influence the fate of this entire world, but even back on Earth, nuclear materials could go missing depending on the circumstances. A high level of threat did not always mean information would be preserved.

Also still wearing her flight suit, Shokuhou brushed her long blonde hair off her shoulder.

“So what exactly is that thing?”

“I can only speculate, but it seems to be 1800 meter, 750 thousand ton something,” replied Kobayashi, sounding uncertain.

No one would know what to make of that.

Her primary source of information was the EM transmissions she was intercepting from the continent, so she couldn’t answer if none of the natives knew what this was.

This was the original version of the Frozen Fossils. When even a small piece was sliced away and a cultivation was made from a single cell, it produced firepower great enough to support a world power’s entire military force.

This was the whole thing.

It was a colossal, girl-shaped something.

How much power did she have?

The countdown was still underway. When the time came, everyone aboard the Izanami and Izanagi would be returned to Earth.

But could they really leave without doing anything about that thing?

This was more than just the Empire, United States, and Republic who had ruled the continent. If Mikoto and the others left with that thing still active, only utter annihilation awaited the people of this world.

For the humans.

And for the Girlish Weapons.

Part 2

The only fighting force available to them was Camouflaged Carrier Izanami and Landing Ship Izanagi.

The remnants of the Cutalularia Republic’s invincible Offense Fleet were here too.

They were exchanging their available materials to help repair the warships.

But their preparations did nothing to make them feel better.

Not against that thing.

She was too great a mystery.

YF-22A had something to say while she waited in the maintenance hangar.

“That is the Ruler.”

“The Ruler?”

“Long ago, she ruled this planet before the humans did. But she couldn’t bear the eternal loneliness with no rivals, so she entered a deep slumber.”

She was a girl of extraordinary size and strength who far surpassed all existing military might.

Ordinarily, Mikoto might have dismissed a story like that.

But not this time.

“So the Ruler has no conception of country or military. Not even the division between army, navy, air force, and marines. She is the strongest all on her own. We are only wielding borrowed power made by stripping away her abilities one at a time and growing them.”

The girl part at the foundation of Girlish Weapons like YF-22A indicated the existence of a life form.

Yes.

This world had already possessed a method of acquiring land, sea, and air weapons in the form of tough and large biological weapons.

After fighting so many of them, Mikoto could not shut her eyes to that fact.

Mikoto left the stifling maintenance hangar and climbed to the cruise ship area.

As she was staring out at the sea through a thick bulletproof window, Shokuhou appeared.

She must have been exhausted too.

Mikoto gave her a difficult look.

“But why would she wake up now? She’s been sleeping for ages in this world, hasn’t she? It’s been so long the humans completely forgot about her and built missile silos on top of her.”

“The trigger would have to be ‘a world first’ that ‘happened recently’. …The only possibility I can think of would be the missile silos. They could have left us alone, but instead the Republic and the States launched one of the ballistic missiles that never should have been used. And that shook the Ruler as she slept directly below.”

“…”

As the Offense Fleet’s repairs continued, the entire group advanced north toward the continent.

They didn’t have much time.

Compared to fighters, warships were slow. It would take days just to reach the battlefield.

6 days remained.

If they didn’t settle things with that 1800 meter, 750 thousand ton monster, Tokiwadai would be forced to return while leaving so many civilians and Girlish Weapons in danger.

That was the same as abandoning all the people of this world to die.

If that happened, Mikoto doubted she would ever smile again. The dorm manager and the teachers hadn’t stopped the girls.

(We only have time for one more large multi-phase operation. If we choose the wrong path from the start, we’ll have a hard time recovering.)

It was evening.

Kobayashi was speaking to the people gathered in the briefing room.

She was providing a briefing.

“It took a while, but we are finally approaching the center of the continent.”

The continent was roughly shaped like a Y, so they could get quite close to the center by sea.

The States and the Republic had both left them alone as they approached the continent. But they didn’t consider that lucky. It was more disconcerting than anything. Mikoto even felt like the entire continent had already been obliterated and the less than 200 on this ship were the only humans left alive in the world.

But that wasn’t the case.

Kobayashi continued to keep their hope alive.

“I would like a small team to do a detailed scouting flight before we actually engage the Ruler in battle. The sun will set soon. Misaka-sama’s 101 Squadron will have drone pods covered in cameras and sensors attached to their fighters and covertly gather information on that thing under cover of darkness.”

“Understood.”

The equipment was borrowed from the Offense Fleet. That was one advantage of the Republic advancing its unmanned weaponry technology because they were a collection of more than 30 arms manufacturers and peoples.

The drone pod appeared to be a collection of ordinary equipment, not a girl.

“First, we need a full view of the mysterious Ruler. Then as many of her attack and movement patterns as possible. If any exist, we also want to know about her weak points.”

Time was in short supply.

But that was why they couldn’t afford to fail.

So they needed to carefully lay the groundwork with some reconnaissance first.

“The central mountains were a no man’s land filled with so many surface-to-air missiles no aircraft could get through, but now you should have no trouble flying there. The mountains were destroyed and no remnant remains of the weapons installed by the world powers.”

“Um, what are the United States and Republic military doing now?”

“Both countries are gathering their land and air forces near the center of the continent, but they are not aiming their weaponry at the Ruler. Their targeting is directed past the continental center.”

“?”

“They are using the confusion as a chance to invade each other. If they can somehow manage to stimulate that thing into walking toward the other country, they will have forced their enemy to fight against them and her at the same time. It’s a lot like using a natural disaster as part of a war plan.”

“What is wrong with them? This just isn’t the time,” complained Mikoto.

“If they don’t act now, it might take another thousand years before they can unite the continent,” said Shokuhou. “For those greedy politicians, the apocalypse is the perfect chance to incite their people into doing their will☆”

Curse that busty villain. Why is she so good at these kinds of calculations?

(They sure are acting fast. What happened to not doing anything until they were 100% certain?)

As absurd as this world could look, it was still run by humans. Reality wasn’t like fiction. Was a common global enemy or disaster not enough to stop the conflicts born of human desire?

And…

“Come to think of it, Queen. What are you planning to do this time?”

“Hm? What do you mean exactly?”

Shokuhou looked truly puzzled, so Hokaze clarified.

With a smile.

“I am asking if you will be leading from the Izanami’s CIC or if you will be joining Misaka-sama in the Shinshin.”

She froze.

Time seemed to stop.

When she saw the wicked smile on Misaka Mikoto’s lips, tears formed in Shokuhou Misaki’s eyes.

“That is an excellent question.”

“U-u-um, Misaka-san, um, wait, you know how useless I would be on the Shinshin and we need everyone where they can play to their strengths, so-”

“Get in the back of the Shinshin. I forgot how much it pissed me off for you to be sitting down there like you’re above it all. I want to see you suffer.”

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

Mikoto grabbed the Queen by the scruff of the neck and dragged her away kicking and screaming. Grinning the entire time.

For some reason, the Shokuhou Clique made no attempt to stop her and even watched it all with big smiles.

Part 3

It was 7:30 PM.

“Ugh…”

Mikoto groaned while holding the Shinshin two seat custom’s control column.

She had taken off immediately after sunset, but that meant she had gone without dinner. Given the acrobatic flying likely to be coming up, she couldn’t fill her stomach just before heading out. If she drank something carbonated, the rapid pressure changes could even cause her stomach to rupture.

And in the rear seat, Shouhou’s head slumped down.

The dark despair in her eyes was even greater than in Mikoto’s. Her long hair was in her face, but she didn’t care.

“Why am I in here again?”

“Find something to do on your own.”

They were using the dark night for a scouting mission.

“Railgun 01 to squadron. We’re going to fly northeast toward the center of the Y-shaped continent. The no man’s land and missile silos apparently collapsed after that thing emerged, but still watch out for surviving surface-to-air missiles. Be ready to release chaff or flares at any time.”

“Teleport 02. Roger.”

“Rampage 03. Ditto.”

“Brat 04 to Railgun 01. …Are you sure you can stay balanced like that? As a fellow stealth fighter, I can barely stand to look at you.”

The Shinshin really had been heavily modified.

There was no chance of any stealth with the huge railgun and the drone pod attached, but the Ruler was a living creature that used her eye and ears. If she couldn’t use mechanical radar, then it didn’t really matter anymore.

This was mostly the work of the Kongou Airlines girl, but…

(Maybe there’s a technique to altering an existing aircraft to meet new demands. Like how the JASDF’s F-4 has so many variations due to modifications on top of modifications.)

YF-22A remained untouched, without even a skinny drone pod under her wings. Her role was to provide defense in case a battle did break out. So she was the same as always. Not fair, really.

A C-shaped bay coast came into view.

At the center of the Y-shaped continent.

But without advance information, Mikoto would have gotten lost despite being at the correct coordinates.

It was gone.

The huge mountain range she had heard so much about was missing.

An intense landslide had flowed toward the ocean and partially altered the very shape of the bay coast.

There was supposed to be a no man’s land with underground missile silos here.

There had been ultra-solid military structures that were made by humans but no one could destroy. …Mikoto couldn’t imagine where they were. The terrain itself had collapsed.

It was pitch black.

The lights of civilization were nowhere to be found on the surface. This wasn’t a case of the people intentionally hiding. Like an abandoned hospital deep in the mountains, the place was so dead it lacked any sense of life whatsoever.

“Brat 04. …I don’t think we need to worry about any surviving SAMs.”

Needless to say, that was no reason for celebration.

The four fighters crossed the coastline to reach the center of the continent.

Based on the laser range-finding of the surface performed by the drone pod hanging from Mikoto’s wing, the piles of debris were only between 300 and 500m tall.

“Izanami to fighters. I don’t believe it. The mountains were originally in the 4000m range.”

“Teleport 02. I see something even more unbelievable.”

Shirai gasped.

It was visible even from a distance.

Her.

The Ruler.

A massive hole gaped open with a radius of more than 200m.

Someone had her hands on the edge and her upper body resting against it.

She showed no sign of hostility or malice. Her unfocused-looking eyes wandered through empty space with just her upper body sticking out of the hole.

She looked just like a naked girl. Her long hair was light pink, or maybe purple? No, it may not have had an original color. Her hair glittered like the surface of a CD and it appeared to be longer than she was tall as it hung down over her large chest and hips.

But her size was anything but normal.

Even with just her upper body sticking out with her hands on the edge of the hole, she towered up more than 1000m. At this point, she had to be discussed in terms of elevation rather than height.

Wasn’t she estimated to have a height of 1800 meters and a weight of 750 thousand tons?

“Railgun 01. I have visual confirmation of the target.”

Mikoto knew it didn’t matter, but she still kept her voice low in the sealed cockpit.

This was still only a scouting mission.

She didn’t want to draw that thing’s attention any more than necessary.

“Railgun 01 to squadron. Let’s get some footage from the outter limit of visual range. That means gathering data at a radius of 18km. We can’t predict what will happen, so be prepared to escape outside that radius if she does anything at all.”

“Teleport 02. Roger that.”

Instead of carelessly flying straight toward her, Mikoto’s squadron approached the Ruler by flying around her in a large circle. Like a merry-go-round, they kept the same distance and filmed the Ruler at the center of their 360 degree circuit.

Using the drone pod hanging from the wing meant pointing the fighter’s belly toward the inside of the circle. Ordinarily, a pilot rolled in the direction they wanted to turn and then pulled the nose up in the direction, but this was the complete opposite. That made it feel kind of weird.

Had she not noticed them?

Or was she simply not interested?

The naked colossus did not turn her unfocused eyes in their direction.

But she was still terrifying.

Her presence created intense pressure.

This was probably what it felt like to fall into a cage at the zoo and find a bored lion inside.

Hostility wasn’t the problem. She was the ultimate predator. Mikoto could just tell.

“She doesn’t seem quite like the Girlish Weapons we’ve seen,” remarked Shokuhou from the rear seat.

“She has no weapons or armor. She hasn’t been altered by humans.”

She was in a pure state.

But then what exactly would she do?

If all she could do was punch, kick, and bite, then it felt like they could keep their distance and continually launch long-range missiles at her.

(I know it won’t be that easy, though.)

The giant mountain range had been reduced to this when she simply stuck her head up from the ground. 4000m mountains had been leveled and the underground missile silos and the no man’s land were just gone. The simple scope of the damage was greater than a nuclear attack.

What would happen if she began an actual attack?

Mikoto observed the naked body glowing in the moonlight.

Shokuhou tapped at the back of her seat. With obvious annoyance.

“Should we assume she’s basically a human, just bigger? That would mean her head and heart are her weak points.”

“Rampage 03. The center line of the body is standard: the top of the head, between the eyes, the throat, and the solar plexus. Beyond that, there are the eyeballs, the knees, the collarbones, and the Achilles tendons. With a man, you could also include the groin.”

…It was kind of scary how that physical fighter could rattle all that off as easily as the sa-shi-su-se-so of seasonings. What did she mean that was “standard”?

“Teleport 02. We are talking about mysterious life forms that eat petroleum to keep themselves moving. Will the usual assumptions really apply here?”

“Brat 04 to Teleport 02. I’m not going to forget you said that.”

Oh, right. Wouldn’t YF-22A know the weak points based on her own giant girl parts?

But…

“You shouldn’t even be comparing that colossal and barbaric monster to the masterpieces of technology that are Girlish Weapons! …I swear you little barbarians don’t understand anything at all. I am nothing at all like that thing, so why would you even consider asking me!?”

Apparently that angered her.

But Mikoto wasn’t quite sure why.

Not that it was worth debating here.

She wanted definite data she had gathered herself more than vague speculation.

“Railgun 01 to Izanami. We’ve gotten full 360 degree footage of the Ruler. We’ve sent the data over, so get to analyzing it with the carrier’s big computer.”

“Izanami. Roger that.”

“What should we do now? We could fight her to get more data.”

“Don’t joke. Safety comes first. You’ve finished your work, so get back to the Izanami. Good job.”

As she had expected.

Once they reached the southwest again, Mikoto and her wingmates left their clean circle to return to the ocean.

“Hm? Izanami to 101 Squadron. We’re detecting aircraft approaching from the northeast. Four readings!”

“Railgun 01. Visually confirmed. …What are those? It’s hard to be sure when they’re girls, but based on the weird front wings and the huge twin engines on their backs, it’s probably two MiG-35s and two Su-47s.”

“We haven’t seen those types before,” said Shokuhou. “That would suggest they’re from the United Sates of Narmeli.”

“Brat 04 to squadron. They also have a hidden stealth fighter. I have visual confirmation. She’s a Su-57 – a stealth fighter clearly meant to compete against my own perfection!!”

In this darkness, searching for a black aircraft by eye was difficult. They would have overlooked this without their scouting cameras.

A Su-57.

Of course, this wasn’t actually an aircraft. Mikoto herself had stopped questioning that part. This was a brown-skinned girl with long blonde hair.

(Is she of mixed race? Wasn’t that stealth fighter developed jointly with India back on our Earth?)

What she was wearing didn’t seem like clothing. Something like black plastic tape was applied complexly to her bare skin. It looked something like a strange swimsuit or like a pattern carved into her body.

The joints attached to her back connected to nearly triangular black wings and engines. Mikoto had seen a few different stealth girls already, but this one was flat even compared to those others. Flat metal panels circled around from the bottom of her wings to her belly, so she likely had missiles stored inside just like YF-22A.

These newcomers flew much more wildly than Mikoto’s squadron.

They may not have intended to hide.

The four United States fighters and one stealth fighter flew straight toward the Ruler and released small points of light. Those were air-to-air missiles.

“You idiots!!” shouted Mikoto, eyes wide, just before multiple explosions split the darkness of the night.

The missiles struck the nude colossus near the right temple.

But she wasn’t unbalanced.

She didn’t even bleed.

This wasn’t due to some kind of mysterious force field technology. Her body was simply too tough to harm her. Which was the most difficult thing for them to deal with.

The United States squadron showed no sign of panic.

After twisting around in midair, they fled due south. They even left behind thin trails of colorful smoke like this was an air show.

Heading south down the Y-shaped continent led to the Cutalularia Republic.

Had they grabbed that thing’s attention to direct her toward their enemy?

So they could force that enemy to battle both their army and the Ruler at the same time?

(I can’t believe they would do that!)

Lights flashed here and there. They were the headlights of military vehicle…girls. There were enough to look like the lights of a city. There had to be tens of thousands gathered on the national border.

So much for being as lifeless as an abandoned hospital in the mountains.

Your visual impression wasn’t reliable after all.

The situation was on the move.

“Railgun 01 to squadron. Emergency!! The Ruler is on the move. No need to stay in formation, so just get to the southwest ocean. Our quiet scouting mission is over, so get back to the Izanami immediately! Don’t collide with each other!!”

The colossal naked girl’s eyes, and only her eyes, moved.

Someone had her attention.

But who in this airspace was it!?

“…”

The naked girl didn’t take a single step.

She gathered strength in a much-too-large arm. She swung her hand horizontally with the fingers bent like hooks.

A gale roared out.

Only wind.

The Su-47, which thought she was at a safe distance, suddenly broke apart in midair. Powerful turbulence could at times destroy a 40m airplane. …But this was more than that.

“What…the hell? Did you see something flash just now!?”

An explosive boom followed.

Thick electricity scorched the darkness. It had been launched horizontally.

Mikoto gulped.

“The extreme pressure difference instantly turned the air’s moisture into a thick thundercloud. That released an ultra-high voltage current horizontally, which tore through the Su-47, causing her to rupture from within.”

1800 meters. 750 thousand tons.

Mikoto realized she had been thinking about this all wrong. She had assumed punching, kicking, and biting wouldn’t be a threat. But when a colossus like that simply swung an arm or a leg, it would surpass the average military weapon.

The remaining Su-47 and the two MiG-35s split to the sides. So at least one side or the other would escape. But that desperate resolve was shattered in an instant.

The naked girl kicked something up with a slender leg.

It was a metallic hunk of rock measuring 300m across.

When it fell back down, she kicked it forward, sharply compressing the air ahead of it.

The boulder flew like a railgun blast.

Both MiG-35s were brought down and the Su-47, which had fled in the other direction, stalled and fell toward the ocean. The air compression was so great it may have damaged the air intake or the interior of the jet engines.

Something exploded.

This time, rockets and missiles were being launched from the ground. They exploded into flames at her flank, but that was all.

Those had likely been launched in a panic.

They were too sporadic and spread out. There was no strategy behind it. The ground troops on the border were terrified.

That was clearly suicidal.

A shockwave spread out in a ring.

The colossal girl only had to jump straight up to set off alarms from all the seismographs in the vicinity.

She broke through the clouds overhead and dropped down while spread out like a skydiver.

She was going to hit the ground like that.

In this case, the immense area of the attack was far more terrifying than something with smart guidance.

“!!!?”

This wasn’t targeting Mikoto directly, but the blast was so great she nearly stalled. The wall of air her wings were slicing through had been forcibly ripped away.

The Ruler belly flopped onto the continent.

For the ground forces, it may have looked like a massive hanging ceiling.

Or maybe like a meteor strike.

An explosive blast and a shockwave spread out evenly in all 360 degrees, destroying everything in their path. The initial ground forces would have had tens of thousands of elite troops with tons of tank and armored vehicle Girlish Weapons, but they were swept away like dust by a broom.

Even in the air, Mikoto was nearly slammed down to the ground.

She didn’t even want to imagine how bad the direct shockwave was on the surface.

“Tele…02. What…do, Onee-sama!?”

There was nothing they could do.

But a question lingered in a corner of Mikoto’s mind. Something about that ordinary thought bothered her.

Yes…

(There was still another stealth fighter.)

“Where did that Su-57 fly off to!?”

Something exploded.

Far in the distance. Still lying on her belly, the naked girl had blown on something resting on her palm, sending it soaring. No, lots of somethings. And they flew over the horizon.

They were the multiple rocket launcher warheads that had been scattered around.

The brown stealth girl who had been trying to sneak away to the northeast stood out from the background. She was making an uncertain turn.

That was all Mikoto needed to see.

The Ruler wouldn’t be able to hear it, so Mikoto sent out an unencrypted transmission.

“Hey, Su-57!! Come with us if you want to live.”

“Wh-what? Who the hell are you!?”

“Your air base was just blown away along with the runway you need to land, right? So hurry!! If you keep flying around here, she’s not going to wait until you run out of fuel and crash. The Ruler will destroy you!!”

Mikoto operated her small display to mark where the two Su-47s and the two MiG-35s had crashed.

(I hope we can pick them up later.)

The Ruler.

She was far more than Mikoto had imagined.

She wouldn’t let the Girlish Weapons die in vain. There was no point in worrying about their original affiliations at this point. They needed every fighter they could get and then some if they were going to fight that thing.

“Railgun 01 to Izanami. We’re going to try to return to you, so prepare for our landing!!”

The ones who had messed with the Ruler would die first, so they might just have a chance to escape if they left her alone. Mikoto told herself that as if grasping at straws.

The Ruler stood up.

Straight up.

She really was big.

Which made sense when 1800m was around three times the height of that famous broadcast tower.

Her unfocused eyes wandered about.

She slowly turned her head and then stopped.

Their eyes met.

“!!”

Mikoto had been wrong. It didn’t matter if you messed with her or not.

It came down to whether or not you caught her interest.

It happened all of a sudden.

“Railgun 01 to squadron!! Eject your drone pods! Immediately!!”

The skinny pods attached below their wings (which were pure machinery covered in cameras, not girls) all ignited. They didn’t have to lock on in advance. After launched, they were remote-controlled to fly them back behind the fighters. They weaved sharply as they flew toward the naked girl.

This was what made them drone pods rather than scout pods.

They were loaded with explosives and could self-destruct after ramming something. At this point, they may have been more like missiles that flew complex courses and could last longer in the air than most.

Originally, they were meant to fly for more than an hour gathering data and, if a battle broke out between fighters, they would fly around to intentionally take the enemy’s lock and otherwise confuse them. And if they saw any opening whatsoever, they would ignite their solid fuel, slam into the enemy’s flank, and detonate.

They flew all around the Ruler, explosions triggering intermittently.

They bought maybe 10 seconds.

Even using all six pods, 30 seconds hadn’t been possible.

The air shook as the Ruler jumped high into the sky and dropped down from higher up than the aircraft. At about the same time, Mikoto’s squadron swiftly selected their weapons and tilted their noses up.

An explosive boom.

A shockwave.

The Ruler dropped toward them with her limbs spread out, but Mikoto managed to fire her mounted railgun first. The falling naked girl was bounced a few meters straight back up and 101 Squadron slipped through that slight gap to escape.

That was a first.

In that one moment, they had managed a win.

After floating for a few seconds, she dropped down from the empty air onto the coastline. The terrain crumbled again.

“Onee-sama, it’s…”

Shirai was speechless.

(Tch.)

The 19m railgun on the upper right had ruptured from within. That was the price of using it in ordinary atmosphere.

Mikoto had fully lost.

It hadn’t even been a real battle.

Part 4

They rushed back to the carrier like their lives depended on it.

It had been a scouting mission, so they had achieved their objective.

But they sure didn’t feel successful.

As soon as she landed, Mikoto asked a question of Awatsuki who was helping with the work.

“Where did the Ruler go!?”

“E-east. Or that’s what everyone’s saying.”

“…”

Did that mean the United States of Narmeli had lost the gamble they started?

The Ruler had begun slowly moving toward the instigators, not toward the Republic to the south. If they hadn’t tried anything, she might have stayed there in the ruined center of the continent.

It was easy to call that their just deserts, but the United States had plenty of cities full of innocent people.

Mikoto couldn’t let those people be trampled.

“First, we need to figure out what the data we gathered tells us.”

“Bleh…”

“C’mon, scheming Queen. Stop melting onto the floor and get your butt down to the CIC!”

Mikoto headed down into the carrier while dragging along exhausted Shokuhou whose hair was a complete mess. They still didn’t have time to change out of their flight suits. They passed Watanabe-sensei on the way.

A bob cut upperclassman was waiting for them.

“We have combined the data from all four fighters and begun the analysis…but we honestly don’t know much of anything.”

Shirai and Hokaze joined them too.

YF-22A was too large to fit in the CIC, but they had set up a tall LCD screen for her. The camera-equipped monitor had been in the cruise ship area and it was meant to display an avatar store clerk. When displayed at that size, she really did look like a human girl.

Kobayashi got started.

“The Ruler’s body temperature is a bit higher than a human’s and we detected carbon dioxide coming from her mouth and nose. That means she does breathe. On the other hand, we haven’t seen her blink even though she does have eyelids. It’s possible she doesn’t need to protect her eyes. Her pupils dilate and constrict, so they probably aren’t just decoys like the eye patterns on a moth’s wings.”

They had never seen a life form with sturdy eyes. They had to throw out the idea that eyeballs were always a weak point.

Kobayashi displayed a few photos and small numbers on the display.

“At first glance, the Ruler appears to have a humanoid structure. She is a girl, after all. But observing her movements, her joints don’t seem to matter. And when she bends backwards, we can’t see the position of her ribs or organs through her skin. She is too perfect. Unnaturally so.”

That made it sound like they were out of options. It had been bad enough hearing the eyes wouldn’t be a weak point, but now they couldn’t even trust in the general idea of sniping her head or heart from a distance.

“I really don’t want to think of her as a single soft mass of flesh that happens to be shaped like a girl.”

“Agreed. She has a mouth and nose, so there are likely cavities inside her body. She also shows signs of receiving information from her eyes and ears. She may also have a spine-like core that supports her body.”

On the other hand, that was all they could say.

She might have cranial nerves throughout her body. The interior of her soft-looking limbs could even contain a crab-like skeleton formed from wrapping layer after layer like a baumkuchen.

It would be nice if this meant she had a weakness unique to her strange body structure, like being weak to mold or that the smoke from a factory smokestack would make her writhe in pain.

“It didn’t make sense from the beginning.” Kobayashi resumed speaking. “Humans can only live comfortably because we are the size we are. At 1800 meters and 750 thousand tons, the pumping of her heart and veins can’t be enough to circulate her blood back up from her feet. The intense reactive force of her own footsteps should crush her organs. I just don’t see how this could work structurally.”

Mikoto had blacked out while flying her fighter. If you had an extreme amount of blood and gravity was always tugging down on it, would you be at risk of that at all times?

“Well…I agree she’s unnatural for an 1800m life form to stand upright on two legs.”

“It really is. Which tells me she is built completely differently on the inside. A girl standing dozens of meters tall walking on land without issue is a product of fantasy stories. Science tells us something so absurd could never actually exist.”

“Um, but…I’m right here and very real…”

Someone who couldn’t actually exist made a timid protest.

“Since we know we have an 1800m mass out there, we know she must have a structure that allows her to live without pain or suffering. Knowing what that is could tell us what we need to bring her down.”

Could tell.

Kobayashi herself didn’t have the answer yet. It all came down to the data from the drone pods.

And the others continued the discussion.

“Even if they were only air-to-air missiles, is it really possible to stop the blast with nothing but thick muscles? It didn’t even harm her skin.”

“I would like more details on that. If it slid across her skin and didn’t penetrate it, then we might be able to get through it if we focus our attacks there to dent it in some.”

“She might be a strange life form that eats petroleum to function, but she is still a life form, right? If we lure her out to sea and she can’t swim, couldn’t she drown?”

“Possibly, Shirai-sama, but she is 1800m tall. Her head would stick above the water unless we brought her to a very deep trench.”

They came up with several ideas, but one thing in particular had Mikoto’s attention.

She couldn’t forget the ending of that initial encounter full of failure.

“But didn’t she flinch when I shot her with the railgun?”

When she was diving from above.

Even if it had pushed her up several meters, she could have swung her long limbs to hit Mikoto and the others below her. Yet she hadn’t attacked like that or worked to recover. It had only lasted a few seconds, but she had definitely stopped there.

“Do you mean she had bigger concerns? But why would that railgun do that?”

“Onee-sama, a super weapon like that would harm anyone.”

“Even though she didn’t even glance over at all those other attacks?”

A short silence fell.

This was curious.

They may have already had the key in their hands. But if they didn’t know how to use it, it was useless to them.

“And whatever the case, we don’t have much time left.”

Kobayashi was tuned in to a civilian frequency. A United States digital TV broadcast appeared on the screen.

The staff was rushing around in the background while a female anchor read the news in a simple studio.

“The 50m object which hit the president’s residence was thought to have been a meteor, but analysis has revealed that it is made from the same ordinary materials as the continent. It was most likely a long-range projectile fired from the surface, but the government has yet to make an announcement.”

A meteor.

A piece of rock.

It was far too obvious who must have done that.

She had destroyed the center of that country without even walking all the way to their capital.

“We are currently unable to contact the president or vice president, so it is unknown who is in charge of the government.”

The United States of Narmeli was in shambles.

The Cutalularia Republic’s leaders had to be sweating right now.

Would the Ruler stop with the United States, or would she turn her attention to another country? No one knew. If she walked toward the Republic on a whim, they were doomed.

That settled it.

Tokiwadai could not return to Earth without dealing with this first.

Kobayashi held a hand to her cheek as she spoke.

“We don’t know what drives the Ruler’s actions. If we knew how she determines what targets to prioritize, we could use our wide-area radio to guide an evacuation of the United States.”

Mikoto’s intuition told her that colossus would attack anything that caught her attention in a positive or a negative way, but she couldn’t be absolutely certain. And a single misreading here would mean the deaths of millions or tens of millions of civilians.

And…

“Umm.”

The CIC received a radio transmission. It was from the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, flagship of the Republic’s Offense Fleet.

For some reason, it was a flight attendant style woman in this world.

“United States fighters like Sukhois and MiGs keep coming from the northeast asking for help, but what should I do about those guests?”

“Stranded fighters who’ve lost their carrier or air base, huh?”

“Hey! Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Shokuhou.

“Given the situation, it’s unlikely they’re going to challenge us to a desperate showdown. What would they get from that?”

Well, there was a small concern of them acting on some weird kind of suicidal pride.

Then Carrier Charles de Gaulle spoke again.

“From what I can see with my bridge’s ultra telescope, all the pylons under their wings and fuselage are empty. They must have dropped all their missiles in the sea to show they have no intention of fighting.”

(Argh, what a waste!!)

They would have been able to land at the Sky Pirate Islands and Ports, but the Girlish Weapons working in the military wouldn’t know about those.

Mikoto leaned forward and responded.

“Carrier Charles de Gaulle, have them split up and land. If you don’t have any space left in your maintenance hangar, you can borrow some of the Izanagi’s space, so don’t worry.”

“Understood. …Okay, everyone, I will guide you in to land. The Sukhois can land on me and the MiGs can land on the Izanami☆”

This meant they would have a mixture of Girlish Weapons from the Empire, Republic, and United States.

“That was scary.”

“Right? I didn’t know what to do with all the human soldiers gone. You can’t just tell us to make our own decisions all of a sudden.”

“I’m starving.”

“Ehh!? What’s water fuel? I just have to try it☆”

Mikoto visited the maintenance hangar and found a mountain girl MiG-29 and a forest girl MiG-31 gazing into each other’s eyes and comforting each other. The way the wings on their backs swing around when they moved, was awfully dangerous.

For Girlish Weapons, the lack of a runway to land on was bad enough, but they also couldn’t stand not having a master to give them orders. And did it really not matter to them who was giving their orders? They didn’t seem to have any qualms about being sold or switching sides, which was very disconcerting. These weapons were managed a lot like shogi pieces.

Mikoto sighed too softly for anyone to notice.

(We have more of them now…but we’re only going to see more sacrifices if we don’t have an actual plan.)

Their scouting mission had been a mess.

And the real battle was coming up soon.

Part 5

Dawn arrived.

The time limit was down to 5 days.

“…”

Mikoto could tell she hadn’t slept.

Facing such a massive problem with no solution available was bad for one’s mental health. But she was too afraid of the dorm manager to not get up.

Without washing her face, she drowsily switched on the TV. She felt pathetic trying to find the world-destroying Ruler’s whereabouts from such a cheap electronic device, but she was worried about this.

The continent was roughly shaped like a Y.

The Izanami’s fleet was in the southwest sea, so if that thing moved deep into the United States – that is, if she went too far northeast – the land would be in the Izanami and Izanagi’s way. If they were too far away, a fighter wouldn’t be able to reach her before running out of fuel, much less actually battle her.

But reality far surpassed her imagination.

She had been careless.

The TV showed her something entirely unexpected.

“Here at Lake Flarkbelt, everyone is talking about the giant girl.”

Yes, there was indeed a giant naked girl there. On a national broadcast first thing in the morning. This global crisis was right out in the open. It was there for everyone to see.

The Ruler.

1800 meters and 750 thousand tons.

She was lying face down across the entire large lake, propping her self up with her elbows to arch her back. She looked something like a seal, or like she was doing a sexy photo shoot. The long, long hair clinging to her wet body reflected the morning sunlight in glittering light pinks and purples. She kicked her legs as they stuck out from the lake. Her eyes still looked unfocused. She gave no clue what she was thinking about.

The corners of Mikoto’s mouth stiffened.

What were they supposed to do about this?

(Is no one…is no one at all going to use some government conspiracy of illegal information manipulation to hide the existence of the Ruler!? Can someone please make this a national secret? Isn’t the United States of Narmeli a military superpower? Then don’t you have some kind of ultra-surveillance of the global internet that you can use to convince everyone that black is white, or some kind of social media comment blocker!?)

Apparently not.

Or if they did, it wasn’t working at the moment.

Not anymore.

One of the United States’ largest lakes was no more than a kiddie pool for this threat to all life. It was too small, so her legs stuck out.

Most likely, they didn’t realize the gravity of the situation.

Not the Ruler and not the people reporting on the situation.

“A group of experts has suggested we call her Flarkie after Lake Flarkbelt, and- oh? She’s getting up. I think she’s starting to leave. Oh, no. The waves are coming this way. W-w-w-we’re shaking! Run away, cameraman!!”

The shaky footage suddenly cut out.

It didn’t seem like they had been stepped on, but the influx of water must have damaged the camera or broadcast equipment.

“We do apologize for the loss of footage there. …Let’s see, you want me to read this? We have just received word that Flarkie is moving south from Lake Flarkbelt. If you live in that area…”

In the corner of the screen, posts that viewers had sent the station’s official account on a short form social media site were scrolling by.

“Flarkie? Lmao (Kitty Kat)” “So we’re all gonna die being stepped on by a monster with a silly name? (Natalee)” “I think they’re just enjoying themselves. The station has completely given up. (Miracle Man)” “I can’t believe no one’s stopping this ridiculous broadcast. Maybe the rumors the government is as good as dead are true. (Cute Wife)”

That was an unpleasant way to get a feel for things.

Mikoto was reminded that this was well beyond just the struggle between the world powers.

This was about more than just human intentions and plans.

But…

“They said she’s moving…um, south from Lake Flarkbelt.”

She had never been inside the United States, so the location names didn’t mean much to her. She opened a paper map to check and found it looked like the Ruler was moving from the big lake in the center of the United States and back toward the center of the Y-shaped continent. No large cities were shown in between, but there could be smaller towns there that the map just wasn’t showing.

She pulled a travel magazine from the magazine rack installed in the large cabin. Research was a challenge while out at sea where her phone couldn’t get a civilian mobile signal. The cruise ship area was only meant as camouflage, so it wasn’t equipped with a civilian band satellite communication base like a large passenger plane would have to allow the passengers use of free wireless LAN.

(Let’s see. There it is. The lake is known for being the location where they discovered the petroleum lake ball which they can make fuel from. Water temperature, sunlight, water quality, nutrition, oxygen density… The cause is still unknown and being researched, but the petroleum lake ball is only found in that lake and the round algae doesn’t grow once it exits into the rivers.)

Had the Ruler been getting a meal?

She was traveling south from the United States of Narmeli in the northwest.

That meant she was approaching the range of Izanami’s fighters.

Unless someone was stupid enough to mess with her again.

“Now there’s a worry.”

Part 6

After grabbing a simple breakfast of toast and a warm vegetable salad in the restaurant they were using as a dining hall, Mikoto descended to the Izanami’s maintenance hangar.

When the United States fighters joined them, they had dropped all their missiles into the ocean to show they had no intention of fighting, but luck was on their side.

Tokiwadai had taken in a few United States Mi-26 (girl) transport helicopters who happened to be lost in the night sky. Needless to say, they had been stuck with nowhere to return to after their units had been destroyed by the Ruler.

But they were big.

Just one of those bus guide girls could carry 85 soldiers at once. (By Tokiwadai standards, that was more than an entire year of students.)

Their large 8-blade main rotor was on the center of their back and the smaller tail rotor was on their ankle. The round cargo space was split in two, attached to their side joints, and held under the arms.

“Whew, thank goodness you were here. If you will look to the right, everyone, you will see we have finally found a heliport!”

“Go to Landing Ship Izanagi’s heliport! You would dent the carrier’s landing runway! You’ll damage it!!”

Kongou understandably yelled at them, eyes wide.

These were the world’s largest helicopters with a maximum weight of well over 50 tons. And their more than 20 tons of cargo was mostly United States ammunition. Now the MiGs and Sukhois could join the fight.

In fact, a few new Girlish Weapons were gathered in a corner of the maintenance hangar and whispering to each other.

“Ehh!? Your body’s all shiny. How did that happen?”

“Heh heh. They gave me a water repellent coat.”

“The food is good too!”

“It turns out we get the princess treatment if we get exported.”

Mikoto recognized them as the (race queen) Su-47s and (miniskirt figure skater) MiG-35s who had been brought down by the Ruler. After she had moved northeast into the United States, someone from Tokiwadai must have retrieved them. A helicopter wouldn’t be able to lift them, so they must have used one of the giant hovercrafts in the landing ship.

(There were also a lot of land Girlish Weapons, but I guess there’s no way for a carrier to get at them. A shame they had to be left there.)

“…”

“…”

Also, YF-22A and the Su-57 were silently glaring at each other in the maintenance hangar. At extreme close range. Those stealth fighters of two world powers apparently saw each other as rivals.

However, Mikoto wasn’t all that interested in the Girlish Weapons (whose continued carefree attitude showed just how tough they were mentally).

(I know it was necessary, but I put the Shinshin through a lot escaping the Ruler. Is it alright? The mounted railgun even exploded from within.)

So Mikoto had intended to bow her head to Kongou Mitsuko to get the girl to fix the Shinshin. But…

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have nothing to worry about. Just leave it to me!!”

The black-haired girl held her head high with considerable confidence.

Mikoto kept to herself that she was afraid the girl would get carried away.

“Now that we have identified a problem, fixing it will be easy. The problem is the thick shockwave formed when used in ordinary atmosphere, so we only have to modify the projectile.”

“Modify how?”

“Like a rocket or missile. I’m saying we make it sharp and aerodynamic!!”

That seemed like the first thing you would want to do. Was it not that way already? These basic oversights were what made homemade solutions so terrifying. On the other hand, a dumdum or hollow point bullet with a railgun that size would be horrific in its own way.

“The mounted railgun doesn’t use rifling to rotate the projectile as it is launched, so let’s add some stabilizer fins. While we’re at it, let’s use some heat resistant paint to deal with the friction heat. This will increase the precision and the effective range, making it all the more perfect!!”

“Umm. So you only have to mess with the projectiles and you can leave the mounted railgun itself alone?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t just launch anything you want as long as the caliber is the same. Of course the barrel needs to change when the projectile changes. We have to readjust everything from the ground up. What could be more obvious?”

“…”

Resist.

Misaka Mikoto, you aren’t a child anymore, are you?

Completely oblivious, Kongou proudly pushed out her (rather large) chest.

“We are about to see a next generation Kongou Airlines air defense weapon. I call it the Mounted Railgun S!!☆”

“Now hold on. How many versions are you planning to make?”

Part 7

Night had fallen.

Before getting to bed, Shokuhou took a peek inside the CIC which had become a hangout for her clique. She frowned.

Someone who didn’t have duty at this time was seated there.

“What’s this? Researching something at this late hour?”

“Yes, Queen. I was analyzing the Ruler’s movement pattern.”

Kobayashi smiled with no hint of fatigue despite sneaking past the dorm manager and teachers to work at night.

Movement patterns were no more than a rough approximation. Not many pet owners could perfectly predict what their cat or dog would do next. It was even worse with an enemy’s actions. So did she really need to work so hard at this?

Even though spending too much time in here had brought unwarranted suspicion on her before?

“The Ruler is made from the same military cells as the Girlish Weapons, so she should eat petroleum and breathe oxygen to live.”

“Right.”

“But she doesn’t seem fixated on those things. If she was only interested in acquiring large quantities of fuel, she would be attacking the coastal petrochemical complexes and offshore oil rigs.”

“Misaka-san said she got the impression ability that the Ruler was focusing on whatever grabbed her attention, positively or negatively.”

“Yes. The question is on what basis something catches her attention.”

Kobayashi overlaid the location of witness information on the map while rapidly eliminating the many fake posts that used digitally altered photos.

“She appears to be walking arbitrarily through United States territory, but there have been surprisingly few civilian casualties.”

“After everything she’s done, you expect me to believe she’s good and sensible?”

“I think it’s simpler than that: she just isn’t interested in them. The country can no longer keep up appearances, but the Ruler is only attacking military facilities and military weapons. She hasn’t shown any interest in political or economic strongholds or in the infrastructure supporting the large cities.”

“Even though she destroyed the presidential residence almost right away?”

“The president of the United States of Narmeli is both the political leader and the commander-in-chief of their military.”

That explained it.

“The country has only collapsed because she has been attacking all the important locations of that sort for the political and military side of the country. The Ruler has only been attacking the apparent enemies, so I doubt she even intended to render that superpower nonfunctional.”

It wasn’t clear if that 1800m creature was intelligent enough to distinguish between military and civilian, but it did make sense.

She was interested in the humans and Girlish Weapons who could fight and attack.

That was her priority.

If so…

“Do those things interest her in a positive or negative way?” wondered Shokuhou.

That could greatly change their next move.

Kobayashi shrugged in her seat.

“It doesn’t look to me like she’s eliminating an enemy because she’s fearful for her life.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Shokuhou sighed.

The Ruler’s eyes were always unfocused and she never seemed interested in the outside world. That kind of apathy seemed incompatible with worry and fear.

She wouldn’t even move until something stimulated her from within.

However.

“The Ruler’s actions are based on her own interest. A positive interest.”

In a way, that led to an extremely troublesome answer.

Who was the only person who had managed a draw with the Ruler so far?

“It feels like she’s spoiling for a fight.”

Part 8

Misaka Mikoto assisted Kongou with her work late into the night.

They somehow managed to get the Mounted Railgun S installed.

And once the work was complete, something occurred to her.

YF-22A was in here.

The stealth fighter was curled up in the center of the maintenance hangar after winning the turf war and driving the Su-57 into a corner. Mikoto approached her to ask a question.

“By the way.”

“Yawwwn… What do you want?”

“You were the first one to use the Ruler name, weren’t you? The humans who ruled the continent had completely forgotten about her, so I was wondering why you alone knew about that monster.”

“Heh. Maybe this is too much for your tiny barbarian brain to grasp, but I am the YF-22A. I can just tell these things. The voice of the military cells forming this strong and beautiful body were telling me the time of awakening was nigh.”

“…Now, then.”

“Wait, wait! I’ll tell you! Stop! Don’t aim that pressure washer nozzle my way!”

YF-22A confessed after Mikoto used a water gun (powerful enough to strip the surface off of a fluorine-coated frying pan) to spray the delicate stealth surface that was more expensive than pure gold by square centimeter.

All while the brown stealth girl Su-57 gave them annoyed looks from where she was curled up in the corner.

The ultra-sensitive girl succumbed to the shower head and spoke.

“N-next-gen fighters use a military datalink – really just high-speed wireless internet – to coordinate with each other. That’s why we go through cyber defense training programs.”

“Hm? Where are you going with this?”

“Well. I may have gotten carried away with my cyber counterattack and not only obliterated all the data on our military’s central strategic computer room, but also left the isolated military datalink to reach the ordinary internet where I’m embarrassed to admit I crashed the foreign exchange and stock markets, took control of all the nuclear power plants in the Empire, hijacked the railroad control system, searched through a whole bunch of university and corporate databases, and ended up copying a bunch of classified information onto the cloud.”

Her voice had dropped to barely audible levels and she was speaking fast.

Mikoto stared into the distance.

“Should we even classify you as an aerial weapon? That seems way scarier than the flying and missile launching.”

“It was the training instructor’s fault for not setting any boundaries on how far I was supposed to go in my cyber counterattack!! So it isn’t my fault. Oh, to think the day would come when being too capable is considered a sin. Am I perhaps the most advanced sinner there is!?”

The idiot got all teary-eyed in her own self-indulgence.

Was her point that information on the Ruler had been hidden in some university or corporate document archive? It had probably been archived in some automatic process without anyone actually reading it.

What a waste.

If the information hadn’t been forgotten and the threat had been properly understood and researched, finding her weaknesses or finding a countermeasure against her may have been a simple search away.

But Mikoto couldn’t expect that here.

She would have to do it herself.

Part 9

They would only get one chance at this.

They had used up all of their days preparing.

The final day had begun.

In truth, Misaka Mikoto didn’t even know if they could win.

She was confident they had done everything they could have, but it was impossible to calculate the odds when so much about the Ruler was unknown.

She had no 100% guarantee, but she would fight anyway.

She would be involving her friends in this fight.

It was a risky gamble.

She was well aware of that.

“First she was Flarkie of Lake Flarkbelt and then she was Nachy of the Nachtvega Plains, but if Miss Narm continues south, she will cross the border into Cutalularia during the night. Will our Miss Narm remain ours, or will she become Miss Cutal? Some Narmelian experts are voicing their concerns.”

The TV news still wasn’t taking it seriously.

The general population must have figured out that they weren’t under attack. Their military and political function had been destroyed, but the people of the United States of Narmeli seemed to be worshiping her as a symbol of freedom and liberation.

Even though the Ruler had no interest in saving humans. In fact, she didn’t even notice when she crushed someone underfoot.

Perhaps this world had reached its limit and the people subconsciously hoped for destruction.

If so, then Tokiwadai’s plans might be an unwelcome favor.

Even so.

“She’s on her way. As expected, she’s walking south through the United States back toward the center of the continent. If we’re doing this, we have to do it here.”

If Tokiwadai lost, no one would be able to stop the Ruler.

She would take an interest in and attack any fighting force, human or Girlish Weapon.

What would happen if this world lost its military might and the supporting technology?

The world would probably fall into ruin.

Or more accurately, there was no non-military technology here.

She wouldn’t attack the civilians?

She was only attacking military forces and weapons for now, but she wasn’t one to resist her impulses. Once all of those things had been destroyed, she would probably start to compromise. For the people with the next greatest power or technology. And the next. And the next. And the next. As she continued compromising, the planet would end up with no one left alive.

But what did that matter?

There would be some people who saw it that way.

Let’s be blunt.

This battle was meaningless.

If Tokiwadai only wanted to return to Earth, they only needed to head out to sea and wait for the digital counter to reach zero.

But no one had protested.

Camouflaged Carrier Izanami had split once. But none of them were willing to head back with this threat intact, so they had reunified for this single purpose.

And not just Misaka Mikoto, Shokuhou Misaki, and the other Tokiwadai girls.

The Girlish Weapons too.

The Liheilstaut Empire’s YF-22A, the Cutalularia Republic’s Rafales and Eurofighters, and the United States of Narmeli’s Su-57 and others were working together.

They had all stood up for this meaningless battle.

Offering their lives.

They would receive no accolades for winning. They knew that, but they were doing this to ensure their familiar scenery would still be there tomorrow and the next day. And to create a future where no one’s lives were at risk.

That was reason enough.

Academy City’s #3 Railgun, Misaka Mikoto, spoke.

“Let’s get started.”

Part 10

Kobayashi Satori here.

This will be our final briefing.

Operation Giant Scramble.

Our objective is to defeat the Ruler who is threatening this entire world and to bring peace to the continent.

The operation begins today at 2000 hours.

It will take place at the former site of the continent’s central mountain range.

Due to the continuing countdown and the unpredictability of when the Ruler will walk this way again, this will obviously be the final opportunity for the Izanami and Izanagi.

Pilots, survival is not enough.

If we intend to carry the burden of this world’s fate despite no one asking it of us, then we must use this one and only opportunity to defeat the Ruler.

I will now go over a general outline of Operation Giant Scramble.

The Ruler is extremely powerful, so ordinary autocannons and missiles are not enough to harm her skin.

But she is made of the same military cells as the Girlish Weapons, so we believe she breathes oxygen and eats petroleum to function just like they do.

So no matter how powerful she might be, she can be defeated by taking one or the other from her.

She is a living being, but we must think of her more like an engine.

We can’t even guess how long she can function after refueling. Determining her fuel level through external observation would be a challenge.

But she should be constantly breathing. Just like stalling an engine, if we obstruct her air intake, she should lose her power. That option has the greatest odds of success.

Now.

Misaka-sama’s 101 Squadron and the rest of the squadrons participating in the attack will be supplied with plenty of thermobaric explosives. They are a tactical weapon adapted from a fuel-air explosive. By burning a wide area at as high a temperature as possible, they will rob that area of oxygen.

Use them to burn away all the oxygen around the Ruler.

She is 1800m tall, so “around her” covers a very large area. Thus, we recommend you directly attack her face to cover her mouth and nose with the flames and oxygen-deficient air.

Of course, one bombing will not be sufficient. Ideally, each fighter will work in unison to keep bombing her so her breathing is continually obstructed.

Even she shouldn’t last long once she is unable to breathe.

We estimate it will take 10-15 minutes for her to suffocate and cease functioning after the oxygen is taken from her. The fate of this world rests on that time.

That might not seem like much, but I am sure it will feel like the longest 15 minutes in our lives.

Good luck.

Part 11

It was 8 PM.

The moon was large that night.

More and more aircraft were launched from Camouflaged Carrier Izanami and Carrier Charles de Gaulle.

The operation had begun.

“Railgun 01 to Izanami. 101 Squadron is in the air.”

“Mama 01 to Izanami. 202 Squadron has launched. And it looks like 201 has as well.”

“Silent 01 to Izanami. Same for 401 Squadron.”

“Maid 01 to Railgun 01. 301 is, no, w-wait a minute!”

Simply reporting on the squadron launches meant a lot of voices.

“Izanami. Roger. The Rafales of 301 were the last ones, correct? Then all fighters are safely in the air. Operation Giant Scramble will now commence.”

“Mental 00. Start by flying straight to the northeast. You should find the Ruler walking through the center of the Y-shaped continent.”

This time, Shokuhou had remained aboard the Izanami.

Or more accurately, she had clung to her seat in the CIC and thrown a fit until Mikoto relented. Something about “I am never again getting in a plane that will expose me to so many g’s it squashes my boobs!” Rejecting her mission at the last second showed a remarkable lack of cooperation for a supposed psychology expert.

Mikoto glanced at her radar display.

Then she looked right and left through the canopy.

The night sky was filled with friendly aircraft.

101 Squadron: Shinshin, F-2A x2, YF-22A.

201 Squadron: F-14D x4.

202 Squadron: F-15C x4.

203 Squadron: F/A-18E x3.

204 Squadron: YF-23, F-16C x4.

200 Squadron: F-117A x3, F-35B.

301 Squadron: Rafale x5.

302 Squadron: Eurofighter x5.

303 Squadron: Gripen x3, Harrier x3.

401 Squadron: Su-57, Su-47 x2, MiG-35 x2.

402 Squadron: MiG-29 x3.

403 Squadron: MiG-31 x3.

404 Squadron: Su-37 x4.

At this point, they were more than just a formation.

They were a wing of several dozen aircraft.

Mikoto found things so much more lively than when she had first taken off in the Shinshin in such a hurry.

“Railgun 01 to squadron. Tonight we will eliminate the threat of the Ruler. Let’s return the continent to its people.”

“Teleport 02. Roger that.”

“Rampage 03. Ditto.”

“Hm? But if this is our final battle…huh?” YF-22A seemed to realize something. “Brat 04 to Railgun 01. The Empire and the States are both in shambles, but won’t that mean the entire continent goes to the Republic which just so happens to have escaped all this unscathed?”

“It does.”

Mikoto wasn’t interested in a political discussion.

“It can’t be! I, YF-22A, am a stealth fighter of the everlasting Liheilstaut Empire!!”

“Silent 01. As a Su-57, I am a stealth fighter of the glorious United States of Narmeli. Are you just going to let the Republic take the entire continent for themselves just because they didn’t do anything during this entire war?”

The Rafale maids and Eurofighter princesses of the Republic groaned and shrank down.

What good was arguing at this point?

Besides.

Mikoto sighed.

“Hey, you stupid stealths, actually think about it before you complain. The Republic invited in so many foreign corporations they’re a collection of different peoples with no real sense of patriotism or national identity.”

“Gh.”

“Mh…”

“So it won’t make all that much difference if the Empire and the United States joins those other 30+ groups.”

That was probably why the Republic hadn’t done much of note during the war. The country was split along so many lines they couldn’t reach any kind of consensus, making swift and decisive action nearly impossible.

“At the very least, this won’t lead to a tyrannical rule by Cutalularia. If they do try to keep you ‘foreign groups’ down, it’ll lead to fierce opposition from the 30 peoples and massive corporations that support them. Just shove all the annoying paperwork onto the Republic, let them take responsibility for the world, and go enjoy cooking out in your yard or something.”

“Oh, could we have them take on our debts?” All of a sudden, YF-22A’s tone brightened. “Then our mutual leader will have to pay off the super nasty defaulted national debt that was causing our Empire so much trouble.”

“Silent 01. While we’re at it, we can have the world leader take responsibility for the global environment too. Meanwhile, we can build a bunch of polluting factories to enrich ourselves.”

“Maid 03 to all! Argh, you damn stealth trash! Railgun 01, you aren’t helping our Republic at all with this!!”

Again, Mikoto wasn’t interested in discussing politics.

Ultimately, it would just mean they were the Liheilstaut Empire on the overall continent of Cutalularia. If they could win their autonomy, they could keep their borders and military, so not much would really change.

“Think of it like not being able to search out a house for yourself but instead being given a rich man’s villa or second house to live in. The Empire and the States can live it up and, if any trouble crops up in the neighborhood, they can say, ‘This is a Republic mansion. Got a problem with that?’ ”

“I see.” “I see.”

“Maid 03. I do not agree with any of this. W-we will be having a meeting about this when we get back! A meeting!!”

The silly discussion ended there.

The coastline had come into view. They were approaching the continent.

She was already visible.

The 1800m naked girl had glossy skin and long, long hair that shined light pink or purple depending on the angle it was viewed from.

“Teleport 02 to Railgun 01. I see her.”

“Izanami to all fighters. The carrier has her on early warning radar. That is undoubtedly her.”

Her.

The Ruler.

The final enemy.

Mikoto squeezed the control column tight.

“Railgun 01 to all fighters. It’s time!!”

Part 12

It had begun.

The plan was to burn away the air with thermobaric weapons to suffocate her, but if they flew straight toward her, they would be killed instantly.

The Ruler.

She was 1800 meters and 750 thousand tons.

But they weren’t safe just because they were beyond her arm’s reach. Moving a body of that size would shake the ground and stir up the air.

During the scouting mission, she had caused intense turbulence, created thunder clouds from pressure differences, dived from the sky in a belly flop, and even kicked a 300m piece of rock.

Mikoto doubted that was the extent of what she could do.

Either she was still hiding a few attacks, or she could come up with new ideas on the fly. Mikoto didn’t even want to imagine what those might be.

Whatever the case, she could easily tear apart a fighter even from a distance.

And in fact, it was the Ruler who made the first move.

She appeared to view them as an enemy.

She grabbed a random chunk out of a rubble pile and artlessly threw it into the air.

Fear froze time for Mikoto.

Each piece of rubble or stone in that was the size of a truck and there were at least more than 100 of them.

It was like a barrage balloon.

And fighters generally couldn’t move backwards. Despite the increasing risk of a head-on collision.

Mikoto shouted at the top of her lungs.

“Evasive maneuvers!!”

They couldn’t remain clumped together in formation. The Shinshin, F-2As, and YF-22A scattered apart, somehow managing to avoid the downpour of rubble and stone.

And a bit behind them…

“Tch! We’ll have to try again.”

She must have still been far enough back to avoid the downpour of rubble.

The F/A-18E short-sleeve shirt and athletic bloomers girl quickly rolled and took a sharp turn away from the Ruler.

The habit of moving toward safety made sense, but…

“Railgun 01 to Toxin 01. No, don’t let your guard down just because you’ve moved away!!”

“Whoa!?”

The F/A-18E frantically raised her nose just before an invisible blade sliced through empty air.

It came from quite far away. The giant naked girl had only slashed at the air with her nails to send a gust of wind and shockwave sweeping through the air before making the distant ocean explode.

A MiG-29 pointlessly scattered flares in a panic, but that worked against her in this case. The many fireworks-like lights dancing in the night sky must have drawn the Ruler’s attention because she reached her hand out toward them.

“Eek…”

“!!”

It happened so suddenly.

Mikoto scattered autocannon fire before those fingertips could reach. She didn’t think this would defeat her. But maybe it could draw her attention more than the flares.

The air was disturbed. Just before she could grab at the fleeing MiG-29, the Ruler twisted around and threw a horizontal flat-hand blow. With a height of 1800m, her arm had a range of 800-900m.

More than enough to reach Mikoto’s Shinshin.

“Onee-”

“Dammit!!?”

She gripped the control column with all her might.

A massive palm approached from dead ahead.

Time seemed to lose all meaning.

She may have passed out from terror for a few seconds.

And.

At first, she didn’t know what had happened.

She was still flying.

And she had a question in her head.

Did that mean…she was alive?

She had snagged a miracle with her own power, but she only stared wide-eyed.

(…? I dodged it? How!? Her aim must have been off.)

“Oh, I get it. Railgun 01 to all fighters. Focus on your speedometer. Make sure you don’t fall below Mach 1!”

“Onee-sama, we can’t fly along complex courses that fast!!”

“Just do it anyway!! She’s aiming using sonar, not radar. Like a bat or dolphin. But sonar is limited by the speed of sound, so her aim will be off for supersonic aircraft that can break the sound barrier. Getting scared and slowing down will actually let her hit you every time!”

The roars of jet engines erupted from all around.

By always flying at supersonic speeds, they could mess with the Ruler’s sonar targeting. And it didn’t matter how extraordinary her power was if her attacks couldn’t hit.

It was slight, but they finally had some hope.

At the very least, they wouldn’t be helplessly wiped out.

“Railgun 01 to all fighters. The Harriers and F-117As are most like attack aircraft, so we need to protect them most of all. And if you can’t get the speed, withdrawing is always an option!”

“Shadow 01. N-no. I’m going to bring peace to the world with the rest of you!!”

She had no real strategy or plan.

But her desperate cry strangely reinvigorated the core of Mikoto’s being.

She renewed her resolve to keep anyone from dying in this fight.

“Kh, this course will work. Teleport 02. Dropping bomb!!”

When the Ruler’s right hand rushed in, Shirai’s F-2A rolled, passed by with its belly directed toward her, and released the thermobaric explosive on its main wing.

Aiming for the center of her ample chest.

She swept her colossal arm out.

The thermobaric explosive was crushed and thrown off somewhere before it could detonate.

But then an F-117A flew over the giant girl’s head on a course perpendicular to Shirai’s. She dropped a thermobaric explosive down at a sharp angle, striking the Ruler square on the nose.

It ignited.

A massive explosion followed.

The air screamed and Mikoto’s fighter was shaken despite its distance.

The bomb produced a 300m ball of explosive fire. That was devastating when used on the surface, but for the 1800m Ruler, it only looked like a bucket placed over her head. But even so.

They had finally…

“Hit her!!”

The tides were turning.

Mikoto could sense it.

“Mental 00 to all fighters! One hit isn’t enough. You burned away the air once, but the fresh oxygen will rush in from all around. So you nee to keep it up to fully rob her of oxygen ability and suffocate her. Prioritize the larger fighters with a lot of bombs but less maneuverability and the slower attack aircraft!!”

The three MiG-31s answered this request by charging straight in.

Ordinarily, that course would put them at severe risk of being hit by the Ruler’s 800-900m arm, but not right now.

It wouldn’t last long, but she had been stopped and they had a chance to keep up the attack!!

“Uryahhh!!”

“U-um, I’ll go next. Shadow 03. Preparing to drop!!”

“Keep it up! Keep firing!!”

It all came down to this.

The thermobaric explosives burned over an incredibly wide area, but the burn time wasn’t all that long. To continue preventing her from getting a breath, they had to constantly stop more bombs to burn away the air.

“Even so…”

“Mental 00. Yes, I can only describe it as a magnificent ability.”

For a normal army, dropping one of these would be a trump card causing tremendous amounts of damage.

Yet dozens of them failed to destroy the Ruler’s body. She only turned her face away in protest, bent her hips, and tried to cover her face with her hands.

She was suffocating.

Without that, they would have been completely out of ideas. The missile silos were already gone, but ballistic missiles probably couldn’t have defeated her either.

“Maid 01 to all fighters. The Rafales will go next!!”

“404 Squadron, stay in formation and charge in!!”

Enormous explosions overlapped each other.

A thermobaric explosive was a tactical weapon that scattered a special aerosolized explosive over a wide area and ignited it to envelop the lethal area with intense heat and shockwaves. It also stole away the oxygen and rapidly changed the air pressure, which would damage a human’s internal organs. The size of the lethal area depended on the size of the bomb, but even a small one that fit on a fighter could turn a diameter of several hundred meters into hell. That meant dropping one could damage a small base or airfield enough to keep it from functioning.

And yet.

YF-22A sent over a scream of a report.

“We’ve done all this…and she can still move!?”

“Mama 01 to Railgun 01. This is a problem. We’re out of thermobaric explosives, aren’t we?”

The F-15C leggings mama sounded troubled.

And she was right.

The Ruler wouldn’t fall.

She remained upright past all the explosive flames. Mikoto could tell the giant girl was radiating a thick wall of invisible frustration.

(What do we do?)

Something wasn’t right.

She felt like one of their assumptions had been wrong.

But with their return time limit approaching fast, there wasn’t time to turn back and work out a new strategy. Giving up now would mean abandoning this entire world.

They had launched all their thermobaric explosives, so the flames would clear up eventually.

The Ruler would be free once more.

Once she took a deep breath, all of their efforts would have been for nothing.

(What do we do now!?)

Something exploded.

In an unbelievable act for a fighter pilot, Mikoto briefly shut her eyes.

She thought she was dead.

But she wasn’t.

That hadn’t been a counterattack from the restored Ruler.

“Ksh, ksshh.”

Her radio picked something up.

The signal was extremely weak, but…

“Carrier Izanami here. Cleaning up the signal.”

“Ksh, ksh. This is T-90A. I’m not sure what exactly you’re up to, but let us know what we can do.”

That wasn’t an aircraft’s numbering.

It was a tank’s.

In this world, they were probably girls too.

“We just need to keep firing thermobarics at her face, right? Hey, go wake up that TOS-1 sleeping over there. Last time, we were abandoned out here before we could show what we can do, so we’ve got tons of ammo leftover!!”

These were unfamiliar tanks and armored vehicles.

Most likely, they were United States Girlish Weapons that had been defeated by the Ruler before and never retrieved.

No.

It wasn’t just the United States ones.

“This is Destroyer Sheffield of the Cutalularia Republic Coast Guard. I’d like to defeat her before she crosses our border, but you don’t mind if we fire across the border, do you?”

“T-90A here. As a Girlish Weapon, I don’t have any political authority, but if you ask me, just start firing, you dumbass!!”

“So you got permission, mademoiselle? We’re not interested in having a Miss Cutal. Are you ready, my adorable corvettes? We’ve got ourselves a competition with Destroyer Sheffield. Use thermobaric warheads and target her face. All ships, fire!!”

The air was compressed.

The barrage of huge explosions lit up the night.

These were still thermobaric weapons, but the ones fired by ground-based weapons and ship guns were on another level.

(But their ammunition isn’t unlimited. At this rate, they’ll run out and allow her to counterattack.)

“Railgun 01 to all forces. Someone fire on the Ruler’s lower body!! From behind if possible!!”

“Hm? We have a few Uragan-1M and TOS-1 multiple rocket launchers back that way, but why?”

“She’s receiving a ferocious attack to her face, which is at the top front of her body. If we fire on her lower body from behind now, it’ll twist her around had make her trip!!”

Several deafening explosions followed.

The naked girl drew out a circle as she flipped backwards to an amusing degree. Like someone stepping on a bar of soap in the bath.

At 1800m, her center of gravity was located too high up.

She fell.

The intense quake this cause silenced the ground forces. They had their hands full keeping down and enduring the winds and shockwaves.

But the Cutalularia Republic had their naval forces.

“Destroyer Sheffield and affiliated ships,” roared Mikoto. “Roll her right on into the sea!!”

The ship guns continued to fire.

The shells flew over her in a parabolic arc and then struck the 1800m colossus with more intense blasts. Unable to get back up, the Ruler rolled to the side and picked up speed. She tumbled down a gentle slope leading to the coast.

“Are the grounds forces who fired on her from behind alright!? We didn’t blow up friendly forces just now, did we!?”

“Uragan-1M. It looks like we got lucky this time. Even I can’t believe it.”

A white wave splashed straight up.

The Ruler was now face down in the water.

“Destroyer Sheffield to all ships. Cease firing! I said stop, little girls!!”

“Okay, my adorable corvettes. Rolling her any more would flip her onto her back and ruin all our efforts.”

Silence fell.

The tension made the seconds feel like hours.

Even on the coast, the colossal naked girl looked like she simply had her face in a puddle, but she should still be able to suffocate. Mikoto cautiously circled the collapsed Ruler so that she could immediately launch an attack on the back of her head if she tried to lift it up, but…

“…?”

“Rampage 03 to Railgun 01. There’s…no reaction, is there?”

She wasn’t raising her head.

The giant naked girl remained entirely motionless with her face down in the ocean.

What was this?

What had happened?

Had she already passed out from lack of oxygen due to the attack when she was standing? If so, she would simply drown here without suffering, but…

“No,” said Mikoto.

She had noticed something around where the Ruler’s face was submerged.

More than 5 minutes had passed, but the air bubbles rising to the surface still showed no sign of abating!?

“No!! She’s breathing underwater!!”

An arm began to move.

But without the desperation of grasping at straws. The motion showed the annoyance of someone crawling out of bed in the morning.

“Teleport 02. What is happening!? Was she hiding fish gills!?”

Gills wouldn’t produce air bubbles.

She was indeed taking in air through her mouth or nose and exchanging the oxygen gas for carbon dioxide.

Which meant…

“She’s breaking down the water.”

Maybe only Mikoto could have figured it out so quickly.

Because she was a Level 5 with control over electricity.

“She’s using the seawater to procure oxygen and hydrogen for herself. She could stay submerged for years and never drown!!”

Should they have kept on firing thermobarics at her face without trying to get clever?

No.

The Ruler could compress the air with a swing of her arm and she could use the resultant pressure difference to create thick thunderclouds from the moisture in the air.

That meant it didn’t really matter if she was by the water or not. If she wanted to, she could create a cumulonimbus cloud from the moisture in the air and break that down to produce oxygen and hydrogen.

Kobayashi must have realized the same thing because she gave a shout, sounding like she was in a nightmare.

“The Ruler can’t suffocate? We moved all our pieces into position and it turns out our base assumption was wrong!?”

If so, things could hardly be worse.

The Ruler could not be defeated this way. Operation Giant Scramble’s thermobaric strategy had been fundamentally flawed.

And the return time limit was approaching. They had known all too well when they left that this was their last chance. There just wasn’t time to return to the Izanami and try again later!!

Part 13

The Ruler lazily lifted her face from the ocean.

Part 14

In an instant.

In only an instant, the entire situation had been turned on its head.

Just by getting up and standing straight, the 1800m Ruler nearly collided with an F/A-18E flying in the sky above.

Her long, long hair swept around.

She lifted one leg from the ground. She gathered momentum around her hips and swung herself around with her heel swinging horizontally around her.

She threw a roundhouse kick.

Her foot gathered all the surrounding air to transform into a colossal hammer.

“Kyah!”

“Mama 01 to Kitty 02! The air current was stripped from your main wing and you’ve stalled. First, spread your variable-sweep wing wide and then calmly reignite your engine. Hurry!!”

Their entire wing of aircraft might as well have been leaves tossed in the wind. Being hit wasn’t the only threat. They could easily crash without even being hit.

Mikoto heard a shrill whistling sound.

It came from the corner of the naked girl’s mouth.

That was a breath.

She had filled her lungs with the oxygen she had lost. She had recovered her full strength.

Which made it her turn.

“Teleport 02 to Railgun 01. What do we do?”

“…”

“Onee-sama!!”

The situation was deteriorating by the second.

They had to recover their advantage as soon as possible.

Mikoto knew that, but her brain refused to give her any ideas.

She couldn’t find a solution!!

And then…

“Hey, T-90A to all you dumbasses in the sky and sea. You should really start thinking about making a quick retreat.”

“Railgun 01. This is our last chance. We can’t run away leaving the Ruler here! I don’t want that regret weighing on my mind!!”

“Count yourself lucky you’ll be able to regret it. We can’t move from the land here, so there’s no way we can escape her.”

“!?”

Mikoto gasped.

A supersonic fighter was certainly a lot faster than a tank traveling on the ground. While the destroyers might be able to escape by heading out to sea, the tanks would be stranded on land with the Ruler. She would eventually catch up to them.

And what would happen then?

Mikoto didn’t want to think about it.

“No…this can’t be happening!!”

“Don’t sweat it… We were considered destroyed in the last battle, so the end result is the same.”

“Destroyer Sheffield to our dangerous neighbors. Don’t worry about us. We won’t leave you behind.”

“Wait…”

“Besides, we do have to buy enough time for every last one of my adorable corvettes to escape. …So let us buy you some time. You and your carrier can escape along with my adorable corvettes.”

“Don’t just change the objective like that!! We need to win and all return alive!!!” shouted Mikoto.

There was no weight behind her shout. That was only a baseless fantasy. Her words rang hollow and sounded so unrealistic.

She could sense where this was headed.

Things were trending in a bad direction.

At this rate, they would all be split up.

The tanks and other ground forces were a lost cause. Could the destroyers and corvettes escape her with their speed? For that matter, who said they were safe out at sea? The Ruler’s 1800m height meant she could just walk along the ocean bottom as long as she didn’t reach a decent-sized ocean trench. And even if her feet couldn’t reach the bottom, there was always the chance that she could swim with the crawl or the breaststroke.

That meant escaping to the Izanami or Charles de Gaulle didn’t mean much of anything.

In fact, if they directed her attention out to sea, she could sink the carrier fleet by either throwing a boulder or stirring up the sea to produce towering waves.

The operation had been a failure. From the initial planning phase. The fighters were mostly loaded with thermobaric explosives, so there was just no way they could defeat the massive Ruler with their autocannons and what few air-to-air missiles they had.

Was there nothing?

Nothing at all?

Feeling trapped in the dark, Mikoto searched desperately for a way out into the light.

And.

She remembered something she had forgotten. Wasn’t there one question they still hadn’t answered?

Mikoto raised her head to look up past the canopy.

Mounted Railgun S.

(That’s right.)

The 19m railgun mounted on the Shinshin had provided the only effective counterattack during the scouting mission.

It hadn’t harmed the Ruler.

It had been far from a decisive blow.

But why had she flinched?

It had only happened with that attack.

It didn’t make sense.

(There must be more to it. There’s something we still don’t get. I don’t know how to use it yet, but I’ve had the most important key in my hands all along!!)

Part 15

Down in Camouflaged Carrier Izanami’s CIC, Shokuhou Misaki and Kobayashi Satori gathered up all of the data they had.

The Mounted Railgun S was really and truly their last hope. But they still didn’t know how to use it properly. Why had only that one attack shown any effect in the previous battle? Something had stopped that 1800m colossus for just a few seconds. Until they understood why, there was no point in firing it essentially at random.

“Did she react to the electricity or magnetism?” suggested Shokuhou.

“The Ruler herself can create thunderclouds using extreme pressure differences. And she can acquire oxygen using electrolysis on water. She wouldn’t be afraid of a high-voltage current.”

“Could she have a weak point ability somewhere on her front?”

“It isn’t impossible, but she wasn’t harmed at all after being hit by dozens of expansive thermobaric explosions. I think we should assume not even the mounted railgun can pierce her skin.”

It was no use.

Hitting her with explosive flames and shockwaves wasn’t enough to harm her and she could simply use electrolysis to get oxygen if that was taken from her. She was too perfect. She didn’t seem to have any flaws or blind spots.

(But wait. Huh? Could it be that? Is that a loophole?)

“Kobayashi-saaan.”

Shokuhou suggested an idea.

It should have been contradictory.

But…

“We have the recon data from before, right? I’m sure you’ve analyzed it from every angle.”

“What do you want to see?”

“The area around her face. And the distribution of carbon dioxide.”

Part 16

This was their last chance.

It had been pried open by Shokuhou Misaki.

“Mental 00 to Railgun 01. Her ear! Target her ear from the side and fire your Mounted Railgun S!!”

“?”

“More specifically, you should hit her inside the ear. Can you aim that well!?”

“That is usually a weak point, but not even this huge railgun is enough to harm her skin!”

“That isn’t the point.” Shokuhou wasn’t shaken. “We weren’t wrong to view breathing as her weakness. It’s true burning the oxygen away is meaningless when she can create her own supply from the air or seawater. But what if we overly compress it and shove it inside her body?”

Shokuhou was right that a means of creating oxygen wasn’t a defense against too much oxygen. This could be a loophole. And the Ruler herself had proven all too well that simple air could be used as a weapon depending on how much was in motion.

But…

“Wait. Did you forget, Shokuhou? The Ruler can compress air to use it as a weapon!”

She used her punches and kicks to drag along the air and compress it. She could even use the extreme pressure difference to create thick thunderclouds. And from the naked girl’s perspective, this all happened at extreme close range.

“There wasn’t any carbon dioxide,” plainly stated Shokuhou. “In the recon footage, there were moments when the distribution of carbon dioxide coming from the Ruler’s mouth and nose vanished. That tells us she holds her breath when she swings her limbs, jumps, or compresses the air. Even though holding your breath while moving is usually a fairly unpleasant experience.”

“Wait, are you saying…oh!”

Mikoto caught on too.

“The Ruler can create as much oxygen as she wants using electrolysis. That’s why we can’t suffocate her.”

“But what about the opposite?” asked Shokuhou. “If we compress the air and force it inside her, it should cause a variety of problems.”

“But she might shut her mouth tight to guard against it, so we should use the ear.”

“The ear can’t cover itself. Now, I’m not actually sure if she even has a brain, but with a mouth, nose, and ears, she should have Eustachian tubes connecting to her nasal cavity to protect her ears. There is a safety valve, but it isn’t as strong as the jaw. Send air in through there and it will reach her throat. Then we can vibrate her vocal cords from the outside. If we send more air through than she can breathe, the intense vibration should tear apart her throat with her own voice!”

“!!”

They didn’t know how many organs the Ruler had, where they were located, or what function they served, but she appeared to locate the airborne fighters with something like sonar. She at least had lips, a tongue, and a throat.

They had to bet on this.

Either way, external attacks and burning away the air to suffocate her weren’t going to accomplish anything.

The only possibility they had left was the Mounted Railgun S.

And they could use her own organ to increase its destructive power.

The Shinshin made a sharp turn and flew toward the Ruler along a dangerously straight course.

To the naked girl, the Shinshin must have been like a pesky fly buzzing in front of her face.

There was no fear in her eyes.

They were empty.

The Ruler made a horizontal sweep with her fingers bent like hooks.

A gale roared out.

The ground was torn up and blown away over a 10km space and seawater began to pour in.

“Ghh!?”

(Good. That’s far better than having her hop or jump and keep me from attacking!!)

The very next moment, Mikoto’s radar died.

The Shinshin had plunged into a thick thundercloud produced by extreme pressure difference.

Even so, the enemy was right there.

Mikoto didn’t need the machine to establish a lock.

The colossal girl must have realized the Shinshin hadn’t been destroyed because she stared at it head on. Like someone reflexively reacting to an eraser flying toward their nose, she folded her arm and slowly guarded her face with her empty palm held to the side.

If Mikoto was still focused on human-based weaknesses and had aimed for the eyes or nose, her attack would have been thwarted.

“Not…ksh…the front!! Target her ear…ksh…the side!!”

(I just hope the Mounted Railgun S wasn’t damaged!!)

Mikoto rolled the Shinshin 90 degrees like turning a dial, pointing the right wing toward the heavens.

The fighter veered just above the Ruler’s left shoulder.

Then she rolled 180 degrees the other way to point the left wing straight up. But she couldn’t complete the turn like this.

She operated the thrust vectoring nozzles to their absolute limit.

The Shinshin performed an impossible action, like a leaf in the wind. Instead of passing by the Ruler’s face, it forcibly spun its nose around toward the side of her head.

If anyone saw it, they might have worried the intense wind pressure had stopped its engines.

But that wasn’t it.

A stealth fighter full of advanced technology could pull off maneuvers even greater than Pugachev’s cobra!

“Gah, gh…gh!!”

The great inertial force exceeded the flight suit’s limits. Gravity squeezed at Mikoto’s body and darkness slowly crept in from the sides of her vision.

Still, she refused to let go of the control column.

She had already switched armaments.

She focused only on the trigger.

A single color filled her view.

The Ruler.

Her left ear. She stared intently at the tunnel-like darkness of the hole there!

Bavwoom!!!

She couldn’t check to see if it had hit.

Her positioning was too much. The fighter was tossed about by the intense shockwave it created, shaking harshly up and down and preventing from getting a good view. Even with Kongou’s considerable modernizations, firing that weapon in ordinary atmosphere was just too much.

And it didn’t end with firing that.

(Not yet.)

Mikoto clung to her fading consciousness.

She recalled the sensation of the control column in her hands.

She forced her eyes back open.

(This isn’t over yet. Not until I get back to the Izanami and Izanagi!!!)

Her awareness grew.

In that moment, the Shinshin nearly stalled from the shockwave.

Still, Mikoto didn’t let go of the control column.

She directed the Shinshin from above the naked girl’s shoulder toward the back of her head. And she shoved the Shinshin into the gap there where she wouldn’t collide with the long, billowing hair.

She flew on through.

She passed the colossus by.

“Izanami to all fighters. The Ruler…is collapsing. Collapsing forward.”

Kobayashi sounded astonished.

Like she couldn’t believe in the success they had snagged.

But it was real.

Mikoto’s fighter flew in a large circle to direct its nose back toward the naked girl just in time to see her weakly falling over.

The damage may have already spread.

She fell face-first, unable to brace herself for the impact. The ground quaked and a massive cloud of dust flew high into the air.

“Railgun 01 to all fighters.”

Mikoto spoke into the radio.

She provided the necessary report.

“One down. The Ruler is down!!”

Cheers erupted.

She heard cannon fire from the land and sea, so were people shooting their weapons to celebrate?

The world had not ended today.

It had been a close thing, but the girls had saved the day.

Meanwhile.

Mikoto looked down at the naked girl who lay face down and unmoving.

That perfect life form had ruled this world before humans. But unable to bear the loneliness of living alone without a single rival, she had surrounded herself in thick ice and entered an eternal slumber.

(What did you think of the world you found, Ruler?)

Mikoto wanted to think she hadn’t been lonely at least.

Once finally freed from her lonely cage, the naked girl should have been able to compete with the people to her heart’s content.

But when she did wake, she had not worked to fit in with the people she had so longed for.

Her selfish behavior had turned her into a disaster for everyone else.

That was why she had been alone from beginning to end.

Even though the Girlish Weapons made from her cells had been able to get along with the humans.

She hadn’t been able to live that way.

It didn’t matter that she had the ultimate power. That wasn’t enough to find happiness.

“…”

Maybe it was the same for the Level 5s.

There were only seven of them in Academy City, but what did that matter?

If things had been just a little different and they had made one wrong choice, Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki could have found themselves on that same path.

Part 17

“Izanami to 101 Squadron.”

“I know. This isn’t over yet.”

“The return device’s countdown is nearly done. Hurry back to the Izanami.”

“Railgun 01 to all Girlish Weapons. Follow Carrier Charles de Gaulle’s instructions and land on her! Depending on how many she can carry, some of you may need to head to the southern Sky Pirate Port, but Charles de Gaulle will make that decision!”

“Hurry. If you don’t land on the Izanami soon enough, you will be left behind in this world!!”

“You heard her, 101 Squadron. We need to fly straight back to the Izanami! It’s time we got back to Tokiwadai Middle School. I don’t want to see any of you fall behind and end up in tears!!”

Between the Lines: Revenge of ****** Goddess ***********

She was standing in an unfamiliar place.

Misaka Mikoto took a look around.

“…Shokuhou?”

“Hey, what’s going on now?”

They were in a giant stone temple colored white with a hint of blue. It was somewhat reminiscent of ancient Greece, but it also looked like a fancy smartphone made for the wealthy.

Mikoto realized she was back in her Tokiwadai summer uniform. Even though she had been piloting a fighter just a second ago.

“Welcome to the Resurrection Sanctuary, you souls who possess special power but fell before your path was complete.”

Mikoto heard a voice.

Someone stood in the center of the temple. The order there seemed wrong, but Mikoto didn’t question it. She felt like she was in a dream.

“I am Return Goddess Disvalerine. I am the ruler of all direct connections and the one who accurately fishes up all things with a single rod and line.”

Misaka Mikoto felt some camaraderie with her.

This goddess had small boobs.

“Insolent human species, would you like to be sent to yet another world? Perhaps a post-apocalyptic zombie survival world with an ultra hard difficulty setting this time?”

“Um, sorry. I just don’t see people with a chest smaller than mine very often, so I didn’t mean anything by that warm look!!”

“Twice.”

Except for her extremely small boobs, she was an adult woman. She was slim and tall, she had pure unblemished skin, and her long silver hair was tied loosely behind her head to fall down her back. She wore a loose white garment that made her look both like a divine priestess and like a lewd dancer, but that was probably intentional. Everything about her seemed unbalanced. The combination of her flat chest and her garment’s loose neckline left her incredibly unguarded.

The jiggly #5 looked exasperated.

“Misaka-saaan, I think this self-proclaimed goddess is the host of this mystery space, so maybe don’t anger her? When someone’s insecurities are so obvious at a glance, you can use it to your advantage. Just come up with some random compliment like, ‘wow, you’ve figured out how to use your flat chest ability as a weapon’.”

“Thrice. You’re out of extra lives now, you know?”

The goddess’s smile was gone.

They had pushed it right up to the limit, so Mikoto and Shokuhou swore to themselves they wouldn’t tease her about her boobs any further.

Once Disvalerine, who appeared to be the boss of this mystery space, regained her confident smile, she spoke while teasing the decorative red, green, and blue ribbons on her pure white garment.

“Let’s get down to business. Misaka Mikoto. And Shokuhou Misaki. Did you like the Japanese camouflaged carrier, landing ship, and stealth fighter I lent you?”

“That was your doing?”

“I fished them out of one of the countless worlds out there☆”

The Return Goddess smiled with no hint of guilt.

She even stuck her tongue out a little.

Do you dislike dangerous young women with sticky fingers?

(I do dislike how she uses her cuteness as a weapon to cancel out her own crime. Especially as a fellow girl.)

“Don’t act so innocent after making such heavy use of them.”

She read Mikoto’s mind.

It was true the origins of the Izanami, Izanagi, and Shinshin had been a mystery, but apparently this goddess was responsible.

“And the return device was my own original creation. Believe it or not, I’m the type to perform beyond expectations on my summer homework☆”

“…”

“Yes. This means I was the one who sent you to that world and made sure you would return by a certain date. It was me all along.”

Why would she do that?

There was no need to ask. Most likely, the distorted situation between the three world powers and the extraordinary Ruler had been a problem, so she had wanted someone to take care of those things. And one of those problems had been an 1800m naked girl.

What had the Ruler even been anyway?

An enemy of this goddess?

A subordinate or weapon this goddess had created?

Or another goddess who had abandoned her duties?

…This made Mikoto curious as to why the Ruler and the Girlish Weapons had all been girls.

“What are you going to do with us?”

“Silence us because you don’t need us anymore?”

“Of course not. I am the Return Goddess. Unlike a certain busty she-cat I could mention, I am the master of resurrection – of returning people’s souls to their rightful place. Me? Harm or even eliminate someone? Never.”

Mikoto found that extremely hard to believe.

“Then return us to Earth,” said Mikoto, glaring at the goddess.

“Misaka Mikoto, I am currently in a very good mood. Aren’t you at all interested in a bonus stage? You too, Shokuhou Misaki.”

“A bonus…’stage’? You mean sending us somewhere else? You must be joking!”

“We don’t need the gold axe or the silver axe. We need you to cut the crap ability and return us to our original world.”

“Oh?” Return Goddess Disvalerine looked surprised. “Are you really sure that’s what you want?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Do you really think following the rails I have set up for you and returning to your world will lead you to happiness?”

“You make it sound like unhappiness ability awaits us in our world.”

“It does,” said Disvalerine without a moment’s delay. “You’ve noticed by now, haven’t you? You are not Misaka Mikoto and you are not Shokuhou Misaki.”

Time stopped.

No.

It was Mikoto and Shokuhou’s breathing that stopped.

Noticing this, the goddess smiled bitterly and waved a hand.

“Pardon me. That was poor phrasing on my part. It would be more accurate to say you are not the Misaka Mikoto everyone knows and loves and you are not the Shokuhou Misaki everyone knows and loves.”

The goddess raised her fingers one at a time and began speaking.

Sharply.

“The Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki here know far too much about fighters and aircraft carriers.”

“Hm? Of course we do. We’re always receiving flight training at school.”

“The Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki here attend a girl’s school that teaches such things.”

“Because that’s what they teach at Academy City. I mean, the city’s a giant collection of flight schools.”

“The Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki here underwent esper power development to help them become the best fighter pilots around.”

“Because we can’t protect anyone otherwise. Everything outside the walls is at risk because of Them.”

Return Goddess Disvalerine shrugged.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki tilted their heads.

The goddess smiled.

“See?”

“No, I don’t see.”

“Unfortunately, you are the only two who don’t. Everyone else gets it.”

The look in the goddess’s eyes said Mikoto and Shokuhou were the odd ones out. The two humans and one goddess were supposedly the only ones here, yet she ignored the majority rule to remain in complete control. She got to say what was right and what was sensible. Or so it seemed.

“The Misaka Mikoto here and the Misaka Mikoto everyone knows and loves are the same person but from different worlds. The same goes for Shokuhou Misaki.”

“Different worlds?”

“You know, isekai. Or reincarnation.”

The Return Goddess giggled.

And that was it.

…

Huh?

Was that really the end of her explanation?

“You can’t appreciate it since you find all of that to be normal, but your native world is set on a decently hard mode. You won’t find Them in normal worlds. Even as Level 5s, it’s an open question if you can actually overcome that bullet hell shoot ‘em up.”

Come to think of it, what was it she had called herself?

The Return Goddess.

Disvalerine was only the master of returning people.

In that case…

“Wait a minute.”

“Waiting.”

She was a polite goddess at least.

Or maybe just confident in her superiority.

“I get speaking to us and taking us back after our trip to another world. That’s your right as a Return Goddess – whatever that is.”

“But why did we leave Earth and visit another world in the first place?” asked Shokuhou.

“I already explained that. Your home has quite a high death rate out of all the worlds out there. So even a Level 5 will probably find it impossible to overcome the bullet hell shoot ‘em up you find when They cover the sky.”

“…” “…”

“You have already died once. Your own lives are the proof of the impossible hell you were up against. If you return, you will only die again.”

Was she…serious?

They had somehow managed to defeat the 1800 meter and 750 thousand ton Ruler. But this was something even Misaka Mikoto would be helpless against?

Was their Earth really that dangerous a world?

“See? If you saw another Academy City, you would be shocked by how peaceful it is. With Them nowhere to be found, it would look like a world set on easy mode.”

Maybe they would have been happier not knowing this.

But the Return Goddess told them anyway.

Probably for her own purposes.

“But it’s not too late.” She smiled. “I am Return Goddess Disvalerine. I have the authority to fudge which world you are returned to.”

“Fudge?”

“Yes, that’s right. I can wield my authority much more strongly when I am returning you. Wouldn’t you like to go to a relaxing world without Them and without Academy City? A world where you can live a slow life with no death or conflict.”

“…”

“That is what I mean by a bonus stage.”

Without Them and without Academy City.

A slow life with no death or conflict.

“Now,” urged the goddess.

Return Goddess Disvalerine.

A specialist in salvaging all beings who journeyed to another world and could influence the “overall flow of events” by determining whether or not they would return.

“What do you say, Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki? Don’t you want to use this opportunity to escape a cruel fate?”

The goddess’s smile said they couldn’t find happiness otherwise.

This was their reward for saving a world. They had completed their task and arrived at the ending and it would leave a bad taste in her mouth if they were killed shortly after returning to their world, so the Return Goddess was offering to rescue them by cheating the system just a bit.

Misaka Mikoto sighed.

This was her chance to get ahead of some other Misaka Mikoto by filling a vacancy.

And maybe that was the only way to avoid death.

So she made up her mind.

“I don’t need a favor from you. Just send me back to Earth.” “I don’t need a favor from you. Just send me back to Earth.”

They spoke together.

Only after speaking did Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki exchange a glance. They hadn’t planned that.

Meanwhile, time had stopped for someone else.

Return Goddess Disvalerine kept her head tilted for quite some time.

And eventually…

She spoke.

“You will die.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“In fact, you already died once. You boarded the ultimate cutting-edge fighter that gathered up all of humanity’s greatest technology as it’s one last hope for one final battle. It was very serious and moving.”

“But our family, friends, and so many other things we want to protect are there. We’re more than willing to die if it will protect that place.”

“That makes it so much better than some safe world where we don’t know anyone,” added Shokuhou. “I can’t just abandon Dolly and my clique, can I?”

“At the very least, I think I’d go crazy in a peaceful slow life with nothing worth fighting for.”

They had seen the Ruler.

That lonely life form without a single rival had been perfect in every way, but she had chosen to self-indulgently focus only on her own wants and ultimately been brought down as a monster.

As a Level 5, Mikoto didn’t want to turn out that way.

No matter what.

“Besides, we gained plenty of experience ability in that other world,” said Shokuhou. “Maybe we could never have defeated Them while on Earth, but now that we’ve trained ourselves in another world, we might just have a chance.”

“So I want to test out my current strength back on Earth. I won’t let anyone claim my memories with YF-22A and the others are worthless.”

“Then so be it.”

She didn’t argue the point.

Return Goddess Disvalerine wasn’t very persistent. She had called it a bonus stage, hadn’t she? So from her perspective, it wasn’t a top-priority matter, an obligation, or a duty. If Mikoto and Shokuhou weren’t interested, that was fine with her.

They had rejected the final escape route she had prepared for them.

If they wanted to enjoy hell, then they could burn.

Maybe that was her reasoning.

“Oh, by the way, you two, do not get in a habit of dying. Just because your world is one of the worst ones out there is no reason to assume that dying will get you sent to a lucky pervert world populated entirely by scantly clad girls. The system is based on a complicated set of standards, so a soul that just lives an average life will not be rewarded with reincarnation into another world.”

…Was that fighter pilot life supposed to be a reward? People had been trying to kill them from beginning to end.

“What happens if we aren’t able to reincarnate?”

“Your soul gets to live blissfully in heaven forevermore.”

“Hey!” shouted Mikoto. “Then what’s even the point of having people reincarnate in other worlds after they die!? You need to apologize to all those people trying to get by with their appraisal skill, dud jobs, and whatever else!! Apologize right now!!”

“I-I get the feeling a lot more souls would find happiness if they just went straight to heaven instead of hoping for a new life with some kind of overpowered ability,” said Shokuhou.

“Oh, heaven is only for the humans who fully achieved enlightenment. Everyone else goes to hell.”

“…” “…”

“But if you full-clear all 136 hells, you might get to restart life as a gross bug or rat or something.”

Huh?

That wasn’t quite…what they had been expecting.

“Um, uhh, Disvalerine-san?”

“Th-that idea of hell is awfully Eastern for how you’re dressed. I mean, that is a very Buddhist way of thinking.”

“Of course it is. I manage a system based on the reincarnation of souls. I know people get the wrong idea from RPGs and mobile games, but it’s just silly to try and combine the idea of reincarnation with the Christian medieval European idea of souls being sorted into either heaven or hell and then just leaving them there forever. There are some exceptions, but Greek mythology and Norse mythology are also generally reincarnation free.”

Then why did she have a name spelled with the alphabet?

There had to be more than than just Eastern ideas there.

Mikoto considered pressing this further until she made the goddess cry, but…

“Reincarnation in another world is actually like a second chance for the poor losers who died and failed the exam but it would be a shame to just send them to hell. …Now, you seem to have a problem with how I run things, so if you want, I can just give up on you and send you off for a very long stay in hell. Then you can spend day in and day out being skewered in temperatures so cold your body splits from the inside while you dream of one day becoming a gross bug or rat.”

“You know what? You make some good points.”

“Yes, life is tough, isn’t it?”

“It really is.”

While Return Goddess Disvalerine stared into empty air and moved her fingers like she was operating some kind of device, Mikoto asked her a question.

It had suddenly occurred to her.

“…By the way.”

“Yes?”

“You called yourself the Return Goddess, right? Then why did you want to send us to some other world to live a slow li-”

“To get back at the goddess who single-handedly controls the journey souls take. Yes, that loathsome little busty she-cat who is so short yet has the nerve to look down on me, who is always looking at my chest and laughing or spewing nonsense like ‘At least you have your butt. There is a demand for overgrown butts like that, you know?’ If I can only prove that there is a way to save souls other than reincarnating them as an overpowered hero, I just know I can finally see that she-cat in tears.”

“…”

For once, she wasn’t smiling.

Her voice was low and flat.

Something terrifying lurked deep in her yes.

Once she noticed, she grinned.

“Just kidding☆ Hee hee. The real reason is that a different environment can change people.”

“?”

“You know. If I send Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki to another world together and trap them in a boring slow life, the fact that they share a secret they can’t tell anyone else will naturally bring them together until they become hopelessly dependent on each other and can’t help but flirt with each other☆”

Neither one spoke a word.

Shokuhou used her remote to brainwash the goddess into standing still while Mikoto blasted her away with a Railgun traveling at three times the speed of sound.

Epilogue: Action Proposal 3041 – Final Results

This is Return Goddess Disvalerine.

I see you’re all here.

The printout I will be handing out provides the final results of the current salvage project.

As planned, the return device’s countdown has reached zero.

They have risen to Depth 0.

But I failed to fish them up.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki both escaped the hook.

This is a first for me as the Return Goddess, so I am working to analyze this regrettable turn of events to ensure it does not happen again.

I do not think the flaw was in the reel or the line.

Maybe the bait was poor.

They both rejected the bonus stage and only wanted to return to their original world. Knowing they would likely die.

I apologize for this unfortunate result.

The world they were born to is a tragic one.

It is a world where human folly led to the arrival of Them.

The world is like a battlefield from a bullet hell shoot ‘em up.

Its difficulty level is notable even among all the countless worlds out there. It’s so bad all the other goddesses have given up on interfering and chosen to abandon it.

You could say this salvage project was a form of mercy.

I at least wanted to fish Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki out of that nightmarish world.

I had hoped to change their fate, so it pains me I failed to convince them.

“Now, then. We’re finally home.”

“This is where the fight truly begins.”

Ordinarily thinking, there was no possibility of Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki surviving for long on the Earth they were born to.

They were all but guaranteed to be shot down.

If you have grown attached to them, it would be safer to shift your focus and support to the Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki of another Earth.

“Nightmare difficulty? You think we can’t overcome this bullet hell?”

“But this is the world we were born in, so we have to protect it!”

With one last apology from me, Return Goddess Disvalerine, I declare this salvage project over.

No matter what they try, their power is insufficient to defeat Them.

Thank you for coming.

“Mental 00 to all fighters. The signal is weak, but early warning radar is picking up an unidentified craft. Are they overestimating their own stealth? No IFF authentication. They are hostile! You may attack at will.”

“Railgun 01. Roger that. Okay, everyone, let’s do this!!!”

(Because Misaka Mikoto, Shokuhou Misaki, and the other Tokiwadai students left on their nearly suicidal return trip, they no longer exist anywhere in this world. That makes this story nothing but fiction with no relation to real people, groups, etc.

Now, everyone.

Did you really think it would end there? Don’t you dare underestimate what Return Goddess Disvalerine can do when she puts her mind to it☆)

After the Epilogue

A quiet voice spoke in a corner of a world well on its way to ruin.

“I see, I see.”

The voice spoke at an altitude of 4000m.

At first glance, this appeared to be the sky above Japan, but it was a fearsome sight with several overlapping blood-red auroras and where even the pale moon appeared muddy and distorted in the night sky. Anyone who knew its former glory would be taken aback by what they saw on the ground below. The tragedy spread out across the entire surface was enough to even destroy the memories in one’s mind.

Anyone could tell that this world was beyond salvation.

Humanity never should have ventured into distant space.

By doing so, they had hastened detection by Them, who they never would have met had they remained on the planet of their birth.

This was one possible ending.

It was the ultimate dead end humanity’s folly had brought them to.

And within it…

“Hmm.”

This was no more than a small possibility.

As an advanced stealth fighter, she did not appear on anyone’s radar.

This entire world had yet to notice her.

But she was definitely there.

Misaka Mikoto could not defeat Them in her cutting-edge fighter. Shokuhou Misaki could not defeat Them from the command center. Those two couldn’t win even when working together. They could not win. They couldn’t.

But.

You must not forget.

Goddesses would grant souls plenty of skills when sending them on to another world. A certain Reincarnation Goddess had shown signs of that once.

So.

This was the result of a whim on Return Goddess Disvalerine’s part.

It was possible for things to change.

For example, a weapon granted tons of gifts by that goddess could join the fight.

“Brat 04. …I am completely lost. Where did the rest of 101 Squadron go? Wahhh, where even am I???”

Prev	[v d e]Toaru Majutsu no Index: Genesis Testament GT Volume 1 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword GT Volume 2 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 3 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 4 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 5 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 6 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword GT Volume 7 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 8 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 9 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 10 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 11 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 12 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 13 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword GT Volume 14 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 15 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword [v d e]Side Stories Volume SP Illustrations - Stiyl Magnus - Mark Space - Kamijou Touma - Uiharu Kazari - Afterword Railgun SS1 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Kanzaki SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Railgun SS2 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Road to Endymion Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 Necessarius SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Virtual-On Illustrations - Preface - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword Railgun SS3 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Biohacker SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 Agnese SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Railgun LN Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword Item LN Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 2 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 3 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 4 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 5 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 6 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Mikoto vs Misaki Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Epilogue Mikoto vs Misaki 2 Prologue - Depth 8 - Depth 7 - Depth 6 - Depth 5 - Depth 4 - Depth 3 - Depth 2 - Depth 1 - Epilogue - Ending Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Cold Game Toaru Jihanki no Fanfare Toaru Majutsu No Index: Love Letter SS Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS: A Superfluous Story, or A Certain Incident’s End Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament SS Toaru Majutsu no Index: Shokuhou Misaki Figurine SS Toaru Majutsu no Index: A Certain Midsummer Return to the Starting Point Toaru Majutsu no Index: Using Final Bosses to Determine a Sociological Threat Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament Bonus Short Story Toaru Majutsu no Index: Thus Spoke the Kumokawa Sisters Toaru Majutsu no Virtual-On: Vooster's Cup, The Day Before Toaru Majutsu no Virtual-On: Misaka Mikoto's Dangerous Tea Party Toaru Majutsu no Index: Birthday Through the Glass Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament 20 Bonus Short Story Toaru Majutsu no Index: Misaka Mikoto’s Teamwork A Certain Magical Index: Genesis Testament SS A Certain Scientific Mental Out: The Queen’s Play A Certain Magical Index: Genesis Testament SS2 [v d e]Official Parody Stories A Certain Prophecy Index A Certain Academy Index A Certain Gift Exchange A Certain March 201st Novel I Don't Want This First Story of A Certain Magical Index!! or I Don't Want This Final Story An All-In "World" Tour of Academy City, the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion, and Ground's Nir Kamijou-san, Two Idiots, Jinnai Shinobu, Gray Pig, and Freedom Award 903, Listen Up! …Fall Asleep and You Die, But Not From the Cold☆ We Tried Having a Group Blind Date, but It was an All Stars Affair and a World Crisis Will the Spiky-Haired Idiot See a Piping Hot Dream of His Wife? Dengeki Island: A Girl’s Battle (Still Growing) Kamijou Touma Visits Another World Toaru Majutsu no Index X Apocalypse Witch Crossover SS Toaru Majutsu no Index X Apocalypse Witch X Heavy Object Crossover SS I Still Want to Do a Summer Fair A Certain Collaboration Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 Kamachi Crossover Illustrations - Preface - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - A.E. 02 - Afterword Durarara Crossover Preface - Academy City Chapter - Ikebukuro Chapter	Next NA