n.

But Kamijou had an idea.

“Let’s make an attack of our own.”

“You mean carry a gun into a container yard full of soldiers?” asked Luca who was back to her normal size now that the threat was gone. “Are we supposed to pray for the cavalry to show up???”

Kamijou shook his head.

“No, not that. I don’t know where Useful Spider’s base is, but even they’ll have to call in their other pieces if their king is about to be taken. If we attack their headquarters, the forces out in District 11 will fall back. If we can make them panic like that, a hole should open in their defense of the container yard.

Fran and Luca exchange a glance.

And then they spoke with exasperation in their voices.

“Isn’t that the same thing as saying you’re afraid of the hornet in front of you so you’re going to go destroy the entire hive?”

“It looks like you’re avoiding them, but you’re not actually avoiding anything.”

Yes, no matter what, they could not avoid a fight with Useful Spider. It felt like the entire world was working against Kamisato’s return, but Kamijou and the girls could not back down. That boy had saved their lives and he had asked Kamijou to take care of the girls, so Kamijou could not let Kihara Yuiitsu manipulate them any longer.

But they also had to worry about Mikoto.

They traveled on foot to carry her from eastern District 11 to the hospital in District 7. On the way, they came across some of Useful Spider’s attempts to collect weapons. They would hear the rumbling of buildings being torn down and they would see transport helicopters fly by overhead.

“You can’t save them all.”

“I know that.”

“But you’re still going to try, aren’t you!? I can’t believe you!”

There was not much he could do, but he still called the cornered boys and girls into a back alley, passed them an L-shaped crowbar, told them to climb into a manhole, and otherwise helped them evacuate.

Several times, they saw fortresses crumbling from the winds of the giant fans.

Just like government officials using heavy equipment to tear down the people’s cheap barracks in the name of recovery, the sight demonstrated a disconnect between utility and happiness.

Once the wreckage was cleared and a clean street was built, there would be shiny new shops lined up on either side, but that would distract everyone from how many people had been huddled together and living there.

Kamijou felt more emptiness than he did simple anger.

“Goddamn them.”

The trip took about 3 hours. By the time they arrived at the hospital, the black of the heavens had grown into a purple and orange gradation.

It was just past 5 in the morning.

Mikoto was still fast asleep, so they left her with the frog-faced doctor. Only then did Kamijou breathe a sigh of relief. He may have had no real reason to relax as he watched Mikoto carted away on a stretcher, but getting her to a specialized medical facility still meant a lot.

He could only trust in that doctor for now.

He wanted to stay here until she woke up. He wanted do that to give himself a secure footing of true relief.

But he could not.

He could not waste the opportunity she had given him.

(Okay...)

He took a deep breath and then let it out.

His mind continued to boil, but it was still manageable. He could keep going. He forced himself to think that and then focused on removing his gaze from the door to the treatment room.

There was something he had to do.

Luca was leaning against the wall and taking a quick nap with her small mouth hanging open and Fran was sitting in hospital hallway while peering at the small screen in her hand.

“This is a hospital. You’re not supposed to use communication equipment.”

“Nn.”

She gave the smallest possible acknowledgment.

Since she kept tugging down the bottom of her hoodie while sitting on the bench, her legs may have been cold and she may not have gotten much sleep. He had heard that cooling off one’s legs would help you stay awake when you had to pull an all-nighter studying.

When Kamijou looked at the screen too, the hoodie bikini girl finally explained.

“I’m checking on the paths of all of the transport helicopters. It looks like most of the shelters were taken out, but the ones without any weapons or that handed them over at the first warning were left untouched.”

Come to think of it, the hospital was fine. That may have been a benefit of using the glass devices to divert the Elements with supersonic waves instead of fighting them.

“You can tell all that?”

“Don’t underestimate the grassroots reporting network set up between the neutral rulers. Haven’t you heard that civilian apps were capturing the supposedly secret routes of government planes?”

Fran may have known so much about this because there was another reporting network that took a step further and tracked UFOs. Kamijou did not expect much, but she was free to talk about her dreams while looking at the app.

“Any results?”

The hoodie bikini girl manipulated the screen to draw a few straight lines on the map. She had likely gathered and visualized the helicopter sightings nervously sent in by the rulers of shelters across the city. It was a matter of life or death for them too, so they likely wanted as much information as possible about this new concern. There would be no hierarchy and everyone was actively uploading the information.

Not all of them were supporters of Fran who was essentially a wanted criminal. But since the hoodie bikini girl was borrowing other people’s Spheres, he doubted she was using her own name. But her presence as a key station was still slowly growing. Whether neutral or opposed, a lot of rulers would act if she needed it.

The lines on the map were clearly radiating from a single point.

That would be Useful Spider’s headquarters.

“District 21... That’s the mountainous region. There’s a dam and astronomical observatory there.”

“There is a largescale meteorological observatory as well. It has a Doppler radar dome on the top, so it must have thick electromagnetic shielding to protect the staff and equipment from its own powerful microwaves.”

“You mean the giant fans, transport helicopters, and their weapons were hidden there? That would explain why they weren’t destroyed by your heat wave.”

“If Useful Spider was originally established for disaster relief, it makes sense for them to belong to a meteorological observatory that can predict a coming disaster.”

That settled it.

If they attacked there, the excess forces guarding District 11’s container yard would fall back to the headquarters. That would be the shortest path to reaching the A.A.A.

“But, but. District 21 and District 11 are far apart,” pointed out Fran. “It will take hours to travel from the mountain to the container yard, so won’t the commotion have died down by the time we arrive?”

“We don’t have to do it in real time, right? We set off a ‘firecracker’ with a primitive time delay earlier, remember? Since we have Luca who can use gunpowder, let’s scare them with an even bigger explosion this time. If we set it up in the mountains, walk back toward the container yard, and then detonate it, we can sneak in while they’re out of District 11.”

“You can be really cruel.”

“I wonder why? Maybe it’s because of that movie I saw.”

Just like with the analysis of the A.A.A.’s magical symbols and creating the actual spatial distortion tunnel, Pirate Girl Luca was the key to all of this. They needed that girl who was currently napping with her back against the wall, her small mouth hanging open, and drool about to drip out.

Luca woke up at just past 6. She had not even gotten a full hour of sleep. And since they had spent almost a full day walking through the streets filled with rubble and white sand without any preparation, that was not very much.

The real reason she had woken up was the delicious smell wafting through the air.

“Yawwwn... Whaaat? I smell miso soup... But I always eat toast and salad in the morning.”

She must have been half asleep still because she muttered below her breath while rubbing her eye with one hand.

And then...

“Wait just a damn second.”

“Hm?”

“Did you just open and close that black rose eyepatch? What, so it’s a fashion eyepatch? That doesn’t affect the path of an artist at all! If you don’t have the courage to truly live the one-eyed life, don’t wear an eyepatch in the first place!!”

“I’m really not sure what you’re so angry about...”

“A fashion eyepatch is as bad as culottes pretending to be a skirt!!”

With water hard to come by in Academy City, the hand wipes given out at convenience stores were surprisingly useful. They were wrapped in plastic bags, so their moisture had not been lost during the heat wave. Their disposable nature was a problem, but with enough of them, Kamijou managed to wash his face.

When they went to the cardboard house area out front to get some food, they found the high-class girls were conserving ingredients by eating simpler meals. The main dish was white rice with pork miso soup and the side dish was a few pickled vegetables.

“With this and the curry yesterday, they’re using a lot of vegetables. I wonder where they got them from.”

“Just like yesterday, I bet they used an esper to freeze them for storage.”

“Bfff! Cough, cough!! I forgot all the water here was girl juices!!!!!”

“It’s not like they’re gathering the moisture from the air around the girls or taking it directly from the girls’ bodies, so does that really matter?”

“Why are you more used to Academy City than I am...?”

Kamijou overcame the mental hurdle by interpreting it as “water retrieved with a special method”. If he thought of it like well water floating up with Psychokinesis instead of in a bucket, it was not a problem...he hoped.

After Luca finished mechanically moving her mouth, her mind seemed to finally shift into gear, so they began their strategy meeting.

They were attacking the Useful Spider headquarters in the mountains of District 21 to draw the excess forces away from the container yard in District 11. The two districts were far apart, so they would set up a time bomb to detonate by the time they were approaching District 11.

“A timed detonator is a lot like a wire trap in that you can’t predict who will notice it before it detonates, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

It was 7:30 AM before they left.

They had missed their chance at a nighttime or early morning attack, but they could not wait any longer. Since Useful Spider was fixated on the idea of the 48 Hours to Restore Order, it was unlikely they would search through all of the containers, but there was still a possibility they would suddenly inspect them.

Kamijou’s group needed to retrieve the contents as soon as possible.

“So we’re on foot again today.”

“Fran, how about we make him carry whichever one of us wins a game of rock-paper-scissors?”

“Deal. Let’s replay the game every wind turbine we pass.”

“Stop that! You don’t get to decide that without my input! And I’m definitely not carrying that rabbit alien when she’s wearing a giant backpack full of machinery!! What is with all that? Are you an old peddler woman!?”

“I can shrink my body to reduce the weight. What age do you want? 10? 5? How much can you carry?”

“That’s not the issue! And if I carry you, I’ll touch you with my right hand and you’ll return to normal!!”

They left while continuing to argue.

They still did not know if Mikoto would be okay, but they could not stay any longer.

Once they left the hospital grounds, they heard a high-pitched engine. It was lighter than a normal car and more like a scooter, a lawnmower, or a chainsaw. Kamijou’s shoulders naturally tensed. The only people with running engines in the powerless city were Useful Spider.

But that guess was wrong.

A few small vehicles passed them by. Instead of men in military-looking uniforms, they were carrying normal boys and girls wearing swimsuits and coats. The vehicles were not cars or motorcycles. They looked like toy carts with an engine attached.

A large helicopter circled overhead.

“To allow people and supplies to travel more smoothly, Useful Spider has begun a motor sharing service. This only applies to Academy City rules and to 50cc AT carts which are classified the same as mopeds, but if you are interested, feel free to visit one of the 152 cooperating gas stations.”

When Kamijou observed their surroundings again, he realized the sounds of engines had returned to the streets of rubble and white sand which had been deadly silent before. He could not completely celebrate this turn of events and it was quite dangerous with the traffic lights still out, but seeing the carts driving through a large intersection was an emotional experience even for a boy who never traveled by car.

In addition to the carts, there were a lot more people walking around than the day before. And they had not been driven out by rioting or suppression. Kamijou even exchanged a nod with an old man out walking his fat dog.

“The recovery is at least making progress.”

That should have been obvious, but this was no longer looking like the front for a wicked plot. He could not deny that it was probably a way increasing the entire organization’s reputation, but it did not seem like it directly benefited Useful Spider in any way.

Even so, he had to fight them.

Even if they were not trying to, he could not let them steal the original A.A.A. which was the key to rescuing Kamisato.

Still armed with her cutlass and musket, Luca made a suggestion with a mischievous look in her eye.

“I don’t like taking help from the enemy, but it wouldn’t make sense not to use it, right?”

“?”

“Let’s use one of those carts. I’m licensed for anything up to a mid-sized motorcycle.”

With that in mind, they visited a nearby gas station, crammed all three of them into a cart the size of a one-person sofa, and set off. That said, Kamijou and Fran were sticking outside of the cart while holding onto the roll bar passing over the driver’s seat.

“I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared!!”

“Don’t worry, I’m taking into account how wide this makes us. You won’t get your head taken off unless there’s a roadside tree with a weird branch or a bent signpost.”

“You’re going too fast!! Aren’t you driving at highway speeds here!?”

“We have three people and the engine is 50cc just like a moped, so there’s no way it can go that fast. It’s just low to the ground, so it feels faster. ...Maybe I should lower my apparent age to lighten the load a little.”

However, they could not remain too optimistic because the recovery process was still underway in Academy City. There were piles of rubble and white sand all over the place, the sand blown thinly across the road could make it slippery, and the traffic lights were still out. And since they had three people crammed into a single-person cart, it was poorly balanced. Every intersection was a risk and the small tires often screeched and slipped at the curves.

“Sorry, but if I piss myself, it’ll get all over you in this position.”

“Do that and I really will throw you off!!”

Meanwhile, they left District 7 and approached the mountains of District 21.

“Huh? This isn’t the route I took when I came here before.”

“You expect me to know my way around Academy City? No matter where we enter the mountain, we’ll find the meteorological observatory if we get to the top, right?”

As they climbed the winding road up the mountain, their speed visibly dropped and the lawnmower-like engine screamed in protest, but it somehow managed to conquer the mountain.

“There we go.”

Luca stopped the cart at a midway station area that was likely a common point on the way to a number of landmarks: the dam, the astronomical observatory, the campground, etc. There were no other people traveling around here, so the area was deserted. The small shop and snack corner were untouched.

“If we’re going to attack, we can’t approach with this engine roaring, so we’ll have to go on foot from here.”

“Brr. The wind is pretty chilly...”

The hoodie bikini girl gave the takoyaki and yakisoba banners a bitter glare, but there was nothing they could do when the shop was not open.

“We just got some food.”

“It’s already 9. That wasn’t ‘just’.”

According to the map in the parking lot, the meteorological observatory was near the peak. Luca had prioritized safety, so they still had a ways to go.

“A pirate really shouldn’t have to hike through the mountains. Let’s hope that isn’t an ill omen.”

“Uuh...”

“Stop it, Fran,” said Kamijou. “Don’t pout your lips in my direction.”

“Carry me.”

“You’re only worn out because you’re carrying all that crap! Are you going to make me pay for your poor choices? Besides, what happened to that UFO balloon of yours!?”

“That is busy with something else right now. So carry me.”

But when Fran clung to him and he forcibly shook her off of him, she sat right smack in the middle of the road and refused to move, so he had no choice but to take emergency measures. With Fran on his back her swollen backpack on her back, they climbed the mountain path like a triple scoop of ice cream.

“Gh!? A-a girl isn’t supposed to be so heavy.”

“Nmh. So warm.”

“W-w-well, that’s good I guess.”

“But this sudden warmth is causing a stirring in my lower stomach...”

“Please no!!”

Carrying a swimsuit girl would normally bring to mind a number of thoughts, such as the chest on his back or the thighs and butt on his hands, but Kamijou was struggling too much to think about anything like that. He learned the hard way the lesson of the Konaki-jiji and the Onbu-obake: People could destroy themselves by acting on emotion and taking on someone else’s burden.

Simply walking up the asphalt road would leave them with nowhere to hide if a car drove down from the meteorological observatory, so they always paid attention to whether there was a convenient thicket around and worked to run through the dangerous areas. Even so, it took a lot longer than walking normally.

“Is that it...?” asked Kamijou.

It was 2 or 3 hours since they had abandoned the cart, so the sun had risen high into the sky.

“Looks like it.”

“Then I’m finally putting you down, Fran.”

In the distant green of the chilly conifer trees, they saw a giant sphere made from flat pentagons or hexagons like a soccer ball. It resembled the antenna on the rabbit-ear antennae girl’s butt. That would be the meteorological observatory. There were a few single-story buildings below it. They were made of whitish reinforced concrete and they would either be lodging facilities for staff or analysis facilities for the data gathered by the Doppler radar.

Pirate Girl Luca peered through a retro collapsible telescope.

“Yeah, they’re there all right. I see some dangerous people with their jackets swelling out unnaturally. We were right not to approach with the engine roaring.”

“But you saw what happened in the city last night. All of those helicopters and giant fans wouldn’t fit in those single-story buildings.”

“Then they must have something underground. That sounds like somewhere the Elements would have attacked, but this is a meteorological observatory complete with radar dome.”

“?”

He was not sure what Fran was trying to say. If he asked her, he expected her to demand he carry her some more in exchange, so he got straight to the point.

“Luca, we don’t have to wipe out Useful Spider. We only have to make them feel threatened enough to gather their other units back here. Do you see anywhere we can attack pretty easily?”

“Wait just a second... There are few storehouses and tanks on the outer edges. We might be able to reach those without going too far in. And it doesn’t look like there’s anyone there, so we wouldn’t have to worry about blowing someone up and leaving a bad taste in our mouths.”

“That settles it then.”

They could not exactly approach on the asphalt road, so they climbed up the slope which was reinforced with concrete to prevent falling rocks. Then they entered the forest and slowly approached the grounds of the observatory. It would normally have been impossible to sneak into a fortress protected by security cameras and patrolling guards.

But Luca had spotted a small building outside the fence.

The guards patrolled the fence line, so they only observed this area from there and would not walk out this far. The security cameras were positioned so high that the tree branches were in the way. And even right outside the fence, the forest was quite thick. Any wires or infrared beams would be constantly tripped by wild animals.

“Just to be sure, I sent that into the forest ahead of us, but it didn’t trigger any alarms and no one came to check on it.”

“Fran, what do you mean by ‘that’?”

When Kamijou asked his question, a round unidentified lifeform poked its head through the gaps in the trees. No, it was Fran’s UFO balloon.

“Is this what you said it was busy with earlier?”

“There was more to it than that,” answered Pirate Girl Luca.

She retrieved a glass cylinder the size of a relay baton that was taped to the side of the low-altitude balloon.

Kamijou caught on when he saw the black powder inside it.

“...So that’s your handmade bomb.”

“I’d be afraid what would happen in a surprise attack from Ellen and the others if I was carrying it with me. And Fran’s balloon won’t have machine trouble and crash like some cheap drone.”

There seemed to be a few spares just in case, but they left those on the balloon. The balloon would be spotted if it flew high into the sky, so they had Bunny Grey’s vehicle wait in the forest.

The small building was made from concrete blocks and the door was kept shut with chains and a lock, but Fran’s tool knife came in handy there.

But Kamijou was dumbfounded when they opened the door.

“What the hell? It’s full of propane tanks. Did they build up some emergency reserves because the city gas pipes don’t reach up here!?”

“That’s perfect. This will make some nice big fireworks.”

Luca pulled a glass cylinder from her naval coat. It was the one she had retrieved from the balloon before. It was slightly longer and thicker than a relay baton and it was filled with black powder.

“How are you going to time the detonation?”

“If you don’t want any trouble getting into college or getting a job, you’re better off not knowing.”

The girl in a pirate hat and eyepatch stepped into the propane base. She crouched down near the large gray tanks like the ones seen behind a restaurant and she started doing something.

At any rate, this was one location.

They needed to put on an even bigger show if Useful Spider was to mistake it for an enemy attack and call all their units back here. Luckily, there were other small buildings and large tanks outside the fence, so they could circle the fence and set up bombs at the other spots.

But just as Kamijou was thinking that, something hit him from behind.

By the time he realized Fran’s small body had tackled him, he had rolled inside the propane base. The girl was unathletic and could not climb onto something higher than her waist, but the overstuffed backpack had given an odd weight to the blow.

“Fran, what-...?”

“Shh.”

The rabbit-ear antennae girl softly shut the door with her back to it. She seemed worried that the latch would make a noise.

“Things are oddly noisy outside. They clearly aren’t following the previous patrol pattern.”

“Eh? Are you sure they didn’t find your balloon in the forest?”

Luca had been crouching down and working with her back to them, but now she was trembling. When Kamijou had fallen, his cheek had hit something noticeably soft even through the naval coat. He was definitely keeping it a secret that it was her round butt, but that did not seem to be her problem.

“...I dropped it.”

“Hm?”

“I dropped the bomb. Because you suddenly ran into me from behind.”

Perhaps to assist drainage, the floor was gently sloped in one direction and a gutter covered with steel grating ran along the wall.

It had fallen in there.

What had? Why, the relay baton full of black powder of course.

“Lucaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...mgh!?”

“I said shh!”

“Wh-wh-wh-what do I do, what do I do? I can’t get it. My hand doesn’t fit. I already broke the seal, so I can’t stop it. What do we do? We need to get out of here. I don’t want to be the idiot who’s blown to kingdom come by her own bomb...”

Kamijou was sandwiched between Luca’s butt in front of him and Fran’s chest on his back, but the hoodie bikini girl finally removed her marshmallow-soft hand from his mouth.

“Pwah. Calm down, Luca. We have to get from District 21 to District 11, so the limit has to be several hours. We just have to leave before then.”

“But things look pretty bad outside,” said Fran.

“Then get off of me, Fran. I’m beginning to think you’re more like a koala than a rabbit.”

They were still lying in a pile, but Kamijou crawled toward the metal door and cracked it open.

When he peeked out, he found Useful Spider was indeed acting oddly. There was no loud siren like for an air raid, but the area beyond the fence was as frenzied as a disturbed hornet’s nest. A lot of the men were reaching inside their swollen jackets and pulling out shiny black objects.

“What? They didn’t find us, did they?”

If so, the propane base would be surrounded or Useful Spider would abandon the building and blow it up with a single grenade like in an FPS. Kamijou had to wonder why disaster relief experts were equipped so heavily. Were they also tasked with fighting giant kaiju?

Whatever the case, there was one main point.

“They’ve upped their security and we don’t know their patrol pattern. If we carelessly head out now, we’ll be spotted right away,” tearfully explained Luca. “But the bomb I dropped in the grating will detonate in two and a half hours. ...If we don’t figure something out before then, we might all become new stars twinkling in the night sky.”

Part 5

“Why?”

A girl’s dry and scratchy voice trembled below the Windowless Building.

In the Tyrant’s kingdom, one could lose their head if the rustling of their clothes was deemed irritating. Several gazes pleaded her to stop, but Raincoat Salome stared up at Kihara Yuiitsu.

Just as an arm buried in snow for long periods would lose all feeling, the one-armed girl’s fear may have faded.

And Yuiitsu readily answered with-->>

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