Chapter 5: The Stolen Sky, and… The Girls Soar Through the Heavens

The only reason Chloe sensed something amiss was that she heard the whispering of the wind.

Had she not, she might have flown right past it without noticing.

“What’s the matter, Chloe-senpai?”

Flying off her right rear flank, Yuri called out to ask.

They were currently in the middle of an outer-airspace patrol flight at an altitude of roughly 3,200 meters. Following the recent loss of the D-Rank patrol platoon that had failed to return, the academy’s patrol rotation had just been overhauled to center around the Royal Guard.

Directly ahead along Mistgun’s flight path towered a massive, anvil-shaped cumulonimbus cloud bank, and Fireteam S128 had flown out to reconnoiter it.

Thin, wispy clouds posed no cause for alarm, but the larger and denser a cloud bank grew, the higher the risk that something was lurking inside its depths, lying in wait to ambush the Floating City as it drew near.

Chloe’s platoon had already completed one patrol sortie earlier that morning, making this their second flight of the day. Having found no sign of danger so far, they had been just about to turn back and return to Mistgun without incident when Chloe halted.

“Hmm, I just felt a strange, prickly sensation against my skin.”

Ignoring Yuri’s puzzled expression, Chloe narrowed her eyes at a narrow gap where a smaller cloud mass brushed against the towering, dense cumulonimbus bank. Wondering if something was hiding there, Yuri followed her gaze.

Several tiny black specks were faintly visible inside the gap, though at this distance they were too far away to identify with the naked eye. Concluding they ought to investigate, Yuri raised a hand to her ear-mounted Communication Crystal to alert the rest of the squad—

Clack-clang. Right beside her, the mechanical lock of an artillery weapon engaged with a crisp metallic snap.

Turning her head, Yuri saw Chloe already bracing her massive Magic Cannon Staff with a sharp, focused gaze, having finished locking onto the target through her mechanical Sight.

Convergence. Aiming. Firing.

Executing the entire sequence in a single seamless, practiced motion, Chloe unleashed a blinding flash of crimson light from the muzzle that engulfed the black specks and obliterated them on the spot. Not stopping there, the sheer destructive force of the blast cored straight through the cloud bank along its trajectory, twisting and tearing the vapor apart.

“Looks like they’ve been wiped out.”

Never one to stint on praise for her captain’s overwhelming firepower, Yuri nodded approvingly toward Chloe.

Her title—Nirvana, the Princess of Annihilation—was not for show.

Though warm and easygoing in everyday life, the instant battle commenced, Chloe displayed prowess worthy of the captain of Mistgun’s reigning S-Rank platoon.

Yet while Yuri’s shoulders relaxed in relief, Chloe’s expression only grew more guarded.

“No, it isn’t over yet.”

“…Right. My apologies for speaking too soon.”

From inside the hollowed-out cloud bank Chloe had just torn open, a massive swarm of tiny black specks came pouring out like a ruptured hive. At this distance it was still impossible to gauge the exact composition of the threat, yet one thing was certain: the moment the two sides collided, a desperate battle to the death was inevitable.

“It appears we’ve walked right into an ambush.”

Maintaining his cool composure amid the sudden emergency, Lloyd pressed a finger against the Communication Crystal at his ear as an urgent transmission came in from another patrol squad operating in a neighboring sector.

“What’s the word, Lloyd?”

“Bad news, I’m afraid.”

Keeping his voice level, Lloyd relayed the report:

“Another patrol unit just lost all contact the instant they confirmed visual on a Chimera—a Mutant Variant—approaching Mistgun. Headquarters aboard Mistgun has declared a state of emergency across the city and ordered all outer patrol units to return at once.”

“Even if they tell us to come right back…”

“Well, consider the message officially delivered. Anyone can see with one look that we’re hardly in a position to turn our backs and fly home right now.”

“A-Are you sure about this, Chloe-senpai, Lloyd-senpai…?!”

Tightening her grip on her Magic Cannon Staff held at her hip, Chloe locked her sights onto the Achernar-class insects closing in at two hundred meters—alongside larger, praying-mantis-shaped Procyon-class insects mixed into the vanguard.

“Think about it, Yuri. We can’t very well drag this entire swarm home with us to the city, can we?”

She squeezed the trigger again. Accompanied by heavy recoil, a torrent of crimson light tore across the sky, though because the enemy swarm had already dispersed into an open formation, the blast felled far fewer targets this time.

“I understand that perfectly well! But if the two of you don’t fall back to the city, who’s going to stop the Chimera?! I’ll hold this sector by myself, so please—”

At Yuri’s desperate plea, Chloe cast a troubled glance over at Lloyd. Reading her silent question, Lloyd offered his tactical assessment as second-in-command.

“Leaving Yuri here alone is out of the question. Holding back the current wave would be hard enough on her own, and she wouldn’t be able to respond to any unforeseen developments.”

Told that so bluntly to her face, Yuri’s expression visibly darkened. Gently soothing her junior, Chloe spoke up:

“Besides, Yuri—back aboard Mistgun, they still have Kanata, don’t they?”

“Knowing that traitorous Senpai, he’ll be the very first one to run away. Just like he did back then…”

“Yuri. Please… have a little faith in Kanata.”

“…Chloe-senpai?”

“Kanata has never been the kind of person who can abandon people in trouble.”

“That’s right. When someone else is in a pinch, his body moves to help them before he even thinks—he’s almost painfully simple like that.”

Chloe declared her faith in him with an angelic smile free of the slightest doubt, and Lloyd backed her up without hesitation. Transitioning immediately into a mobile interception battle against the oncoming swarm of Armored Insects, the two of them opened fire, drawing Yuri right into the swirling melee alongside them.

The Guardian Command Center.

Inside the dimly lit underground bunker where the overhead lights had been turned down low, multiple wall monitors streamed live external video feeds around a central three-dimensional holographic projection of Mistgun, while teams of operators wearing headphone-type Communication Crystals linked to the city’s Large-Scale Communication Crystals stood on high alert at their consoles.

When Freon strode into the bunker, the first thing that caught her eye was the anxious gathering of the other Department Heads and the Academy Director. The air-raid sirens had gone off just as she was wrapping up her morning administrative paperwork, and because she had stayed at her desk long enough to issue initial alert and evacuation protocols sorted by platoon rank in accordance with academy regulations, she had arrived slightly after the others.

As the commander holding supreme military authority during combat operations, Freon issued her first order at once:

“Give me a situation report.”

“We are facing a large-scale Armored Insect assault, ma’am! Look here.”

An operator immediately brought up a cluster of red blips across the 3D holographic projection of the city. There were not merely dozens or hundreds of them. Thousands—if not ten thousand or more—of crimson light points swarmed across the display, blanketing the surrounding airspace in red.

Every single red dot represented an Armored Insect. Against that sea of red, the blue blips indicating Mistgun’s Sky Wizards deploying along standard defense perimeters looked overwhelmingly outnumbered.

“Well now… It seems our guests have certainly overestimated our fighting strength.”

Freon glared coldly at the red blips still multiplying across the projection. Fewer than twenty minutes had elapsed since she had received the initial contact report in her office and hurried down to the command bunker. Yet in that brief window, countless thousands of red dots had moved as if guided by a single commanding intelligence, forming a crescent-shaped half-encirclement directly across Mistgun’s flight path.

Freon had lived through assaults of this magnitude several times in the past. On the worst of those occasions, despite desperate resistance from the defense corps, the swarm had breached the city interior, inflicting triple-digit casualties not only among the Sky Wizards, but among the civilian populace as well.

“How is the civilian evacuation progressing?”

“Smoothly so far, though the panic in the streets has already caused a string of minor injuries among the residents…”

“So long as the evacuation is proceeding on schedule, there is no issue. Getting off with scrapes and bruises in an emergency like this should be considered a stroke of luck.”

The Academy Director grimaced slightly at her blunt reply, yet compared to what lay ahead—a full-scale war of attrition against a massive Armored Insect swarm—minor sprains and bruises were nothing. Moments from now, the academy’s Sky Wizards would be putting their lives on the line.

“The situation is what it is. Our victory condition is the swift and total eradication of the attacking Armored Insects and their commanding Chimera. Our defeat condition is Mistgun being shot out of the sky, or allowing the enemy to breach the underground civilian shelters inside the city. Maintain our current battle stations and organize seven full battalions centered around our A-Rank platoons. Deploy them to defend all vital sectors.”

During active combat engagements against Armored Insects, the authority of the Guardian Leader superseded even that of the Academy Director, the supreme head of Mistgun.

Staff officers immediately scrambled to relay Freon’s deployment orders across the communications network. Watching them work, Freon raised her voice to rally the room:

“Every battle is like this. The battlefield is constantly in flux, and things never go the way we wish they would. All any of us can do is give everything we have to survive. That is the one rule of this command center. Anyone who has already surrendered to defeatism in their heart may leave this room right now—while you still have the chance to run.”

Spoken with fierce intensity, Freon’s challenge to “run” hung heavy in the air as everyone in the bunker grasped its true meaning. Aboard a Floating City drifting three thousand meters above the earth, there was nowhere to run. Abandoning the city to save oneself meant forsaking everything they were sworn to protect—an unforgivable act of treason.

Freon swept her sharp obsidian gaze around the command center. Not a single person in the room dared to look away or object to the girl who bore ultimate responsibility for the city’s defense.

“Very well. Commence combat operations! Relay orders to all battalions: the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th Battalions, built around our core A-Rank platoons, are to form a double defense line in the outer airspace, while the 7th Battalion is to hold the defensive perimeter directly above the city—”

Suburban District 3. Always a quiet residential quarter even on ordinary days, the district now lay hushed and deserted like a ghost town after its residents evacuated to the shelters. Assigned to civilian evacuation guidance here, Misora called out her report:

“I’ve finished checking my block to make sure nobody got left behind!”

“Hmph. I have completed my assigned sector as well. Not a single straggler remains on this side either. Good grief, for a goddess like myself to be saddled with such menial legwork is thoroughly beneath me.”

Checking for delayed evacuees and making sure no looters took advantage of the chaos, the members of Fireteam E601 had just finished patrolling their assigned suburban blocks.

Because the outer suburban districts bordering the Dome Wall had light foot traffic to begin with, the evacuation had proceeded smoothly enough—

“I’m done checking my sector too. …Come to think of it, where’s Lecty?”

When Kanata and the other two went looking for her, they found Lecty—who had been diligently checking every narrow back alley and shadowed stairwell—crouched down on all fours on the pavement, coaxing a frightened black cat that had wedged itself into a narrow gap between two walls.

“Meow,” Lecty purred gently, mimicking a cat’s cry until she coaxed the trembling animal into her arms. Faced with someone so pure and guileless, even a terrified stray animal dropped its guard completely.

“Umm… Kanata-san…”

Cradling the black cat against her chest, Lecty peered up at him with pleading eyes.

“Go take the little guy down to the underground shelter.”

“Thank you so much!”

Holding the black cat carefully in her arms, Lecty sprinted off toward the elevator shaft leading down to the civilian Underground Shelter.

Watching her go, Rico narrowed her eyes in suspicion and turned to Kanata.

“Why are you loitering back here with us?”

“Making sure no evacuees got left behind, obviously.”

“That is not what I am asking. I saw your true ability firsthand during our drill. If you are a former ace, why not sortie straight to the front lines and trample the enemy underfoot?”

Even if he was branded a traitor, Kanata was still a resident of this city—yet to Rico’s eyes, he was acting as though this life-or-death crisis had nothing to do with him.

In truth, nothing would have made Kanata happier than flying straight to the front lines right this second. However—

“I’ve got my own circumstances to deal with. I’m a traitor, after all.”

Kanata brushed the question off in a flat, detached tone. Giving him a silent, slightly disdainful sidelong glance as if to say Once a traitor, always a traitor, Rico turned on her heel to double-check the neighboring street for stragglers.

Standing beside them, however, Misora overheard the exchange and frowned in quiet doubt.

As elusive and unreadable as the carefree Kanata could be, after what had happened up on Hope of Hill, Misora knew better than anyone that he possessed an unshakeable spine where it counted.

Every single year, the Guardian Department suffered casualties in the line of duty, yet Misora was certain that Kanata was the last person who would ever abandon comrades to die. After all, he had gone out of his way to stick with a hopeless dropout like her and coach her with everything he had. There was no way someone with that much fire inside him would sit out a battle to protect the city without a reason.

Then why isn’t he flying out to the front lines? Could it be that even though he wants to sortie, there’s some reason he physically can’t? Could it have something to do with…

“Umm, Kanata-san! I safely delivered kitty-chan to the shelter!”

“Hm, nice work, Lecty.”

Returning from the shelter elevator, Lecty was beaming from ear to ear.

Matching her bright mood, Kanata’s expression relaxed back into its usual carefree grin.

“What’s with the big smile? Something good happen down there?”

“Yes! When I brought kitty-chan inside, all the citizens waiting in the shelter cheered for us and wished us luck!”

They had no doubt been ordinary residents placing all their hopes in the students of the Guardian Department.

“Gotcha. Then we’d better make sure we live up to their expectations.”

It happened at that exact moment. Directly overhead above Mistgun, the formations of the 7th Battalion standing aerial guard suddenly scrambled into frantic motion as countless dark shapes rose up around the city’s perimeter like a billowing black fog…

A deafening roar of beating insect wings layered over itself thousands of times until the very sky rumbled as though the earth itself were groaning.

Devour the humans. Slaughter them. Butcher every last one. That was the sole collective will of the Armored Insects.

Coursing through their carapaces was Curse Power—an anomalous power of ruin beyond human comprehension.

Darkening the heavens as they surged forward in a swarm numbering in the thousands, the massed insects created the illusion that a pitch-black storm cloud had swallowed that quadrant of the sky.

The instant the vanguard of the swarm closed to visual range of Mistgun, more than a dozen lances of concentrated magical light lanced out from the defensive perimeter, tearing straight into the heart of the Achernar-class horde.

Several dozen insects were vaporized and sent plummeting in a heartbeat. Volley after volley of magical bombardment rained down without letup, incinerating everything they touched—yet measured against the sheer size of the swarm, the losses were a drop in the bucket.

Stationed across the outer airspace were the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th Battalions—each numbering roughly three hundred Sky Wizards, for a combined defense force of twelve hundred fighters. Though relatively few of the students had prior live-combat experience, they were still the handpicked elite of the academy city. Refusing to cower before the swarm, each wizard readied their Mithril armament and moved to exterminate the invaders without mercy.

Thousands of glowing red compound eyes pivoted in unison toward the defense line. At the head of the pack, scout insects known as Finders vibrated their thoraxes rapidly to lock onto the wizards’ magic signatures, and the entire swarm hurtled forward at breakneck speed.

Drawn up in a horizontal battle line, the Sky Wizards unleashed a synchronized barrage of Magic Gunfire and Bombardment. Thick and thin beams of multi-colored light tore into the jet-black tide, blossoming into chains of midair explosions across the swarm.

Yet the momentum of the Armored Insects didn’t falter for a second. Pressing forward through sheer overwhelming numbers, they surged straight through the curtain of magic artillery and crashed into a point-blank aerial Dogfight with the close-quarters vanguard wizards. Though scores of insects were cut down in the opening clash, the swarm paid its casualties no mind, hurtling past the outer perimeter straight toward Mistgun like a berserk tidal wave.

“All Guardian Department students currently assigned to civilian evacuation guidance within the city proper, prepare for combat immediately. Deploy every skill at your disposal and annihilate the Armored Insects descending into the residential districts!”

Freon’s voice rang out over the city speakers, brooking no hesitation. That order alone told everyone just how dire the situation had become.

After all, every single platoon assigned to evacuation duty inside the city proper belonged to E-Rank—green squads that headquarters had deliberately kept in reserve inside the dome to avoid throwing them into live combat.

Their first real battle. Their first live engagement. Their first fight to the death.

“Getting thrown straight into live combat wasn’t on today’s schedule, but it looks like even the F-Rank Platoon just got called up to the stage.”

“Hey, we’re about to fly into our very first real battle—quit tanking our morale by calling us the F-Rank Platoon!”

“Hmph. Good grief, dirtying my hands with small fry goes against my nature, but so be it.”

“I-I’ll do my very best!”

In the eyes of all three girls shone the unmistakable light of settled resolve.

Though each of them carried different reasons for fighting, to Kanata’s eyes, that gleam was the light of human willpower at its strongest. Even if he told them to run and hide now, not one of the three would budge. He could tell that much at a glance.

“Fighting inside the city means you’re surrounded by buildings, so watch your surroundings carefully. If you build up too much airspeed and slam headfirst into a wall, it’s lights out.”

Acknowledging their resolve, Kanata gave them a brisk warning, and Misora, Lecty, and Rico nodded back with grave determination.

“I’ll guard your six. As your instructor, if any of you get into a tight spot, I’ll step in and cover you without fail. So go out there and fight the way you’ve practiced.”

Materializing his jet-black Broom and a magic dagger out of thin air, Kanata took up a relaxed guard stance. Watching over his students’ backs was an instructor’s duty, too.

Giving a firm nod to Kanata—who stood behind them as solid and reassuring as bedrock—Misora, Lecty, and Rico activated their Flight Magecraft and rocketed skyward to intercept the Armored Insects descending into the streets below the Dome Wall.

Beneath the fifty-meter ceiling of the outer Dome Wall, a low-altitude urban dogfight erupted to defend the residential districts.

While the Armored Insects darted through the streets with feral agility, Mistgun’s E-Rank defenders struggled badly. Most of the E-Rank students hadn’t mentally prepared themselves for a fight to the death, leaving their movements stiff, hesitant, and clumsy on their very first battlefield.

Amid the chaotic melee, a single Armored Insect broke from the pack and hurtled in a dead straight line toward Misora—a giant fly-like monstrosity with glowing red compound eyes: an Achernar-class insect.

Measuring roughly two meters in length, the Achernar-class was the smallest and weakest breed of Armored Insect, though because they hunted in swarms, facing several at once sent their threat level skyrocketing. Normally only D-Rank platoons and above were cleared for live combat sorties, yet against a lone Achernar-class drone, even an E-Rank student ought to be able to hold their own.

Step by step, Misora recited everything Kanata had drilled into her out loud to steady herself:

“First, keep my field of vision wide and make sure I never lose sight of my target…”

Scanning the airspace around her, Misora confirmed there were no other insects nearby. Kanata had warned her that if multiple enemies ganged up on her at once, her current skill level wouldn’t cut it and she should bolt immediately—but right now, only this single drone baring its mandibles to tear her apart had locked onto her.

“Next, fire suppressing shots to keep it in check while circling around to take its six. I don’t need to score a direct hit yet—just herd it with suppressing fire!”

Without worrying about pinpoint precision, Misora eased off her airspeed slightly and squeezed off three Deflection Shooting blasts. Against a lone target, there was no need to burn stamina flying at top speed. One of her three magic blasts grazed past the insect’s flank.

A lucky shot. Startled, the Achernar-class insect abruptly bled off speed and jinked into an erratic evasive maneuver, exposing its underside as it flashed past Misora instead of charging her head-on.

“No way—I have a wide-open shot right now! Wait, no—”

As the two of them streaked past each other at close range, Misora instinctively started to swing her Magic Cannon Sword’s muzzle around to pull the trigger—then stopped herself. Her gunnery wasn’t nearly polished enough yet to land a snapshot in the split second two high-speed flyers crossed paths. During her drills with Kanata, she hadn’t managed to land a single near-miss in that window. Gritting her teeth, she resisted the urge to fire wildly and focused exclusively on her flight turn.

“Now loop around behind its back…”

Following the textbook rule of aerial combat, she executed a tight Turn the instant they crossed paths without bleeding off her airspeed. Because she hadn’t over-accelerated going into the pass, her turning radius was much tighter than usual. As the insect banked into a right turn to come back around, Misora squeezed off another suppressing blast to disrupt its posture, poured on a burst of acceleration, and slotted cleanly onto the enemy’s tail.

“And now, once the target fills the entire lens of the Sight from edge to edge…”

Misora curled her index finger firmly around the trigger on her handguard.

“H-Hit───!”

She fired. Heavy recoil jolted up through both arms.

Perhaps because she had still been half a step too far back, the Achernar-class insect barely read the trajectory in time and banked sharply to the left to evade—only for the magic blast to blow its left hind leg clean off a split second later.

Gishaaaaaaa—! A screeching shriek tore through the air a beat later. Driven into a frenzy of hatred by the loss of its leg, the maimed Achernar-class insect looped upward and lunged straight back at Misora along a nearly linear trajectory, its hypertrophied mandibles snapping wide to rip her throat out. Yet Misora didn’t flinch.

“I’m not gonna lose!”

Braking to a dead hover in midair, she stared straight into the compound eyes of the oncoming insect. Like thrusting a giant hidden bayonet forward, she jammed the muzzle of her Magic Cannon Sword right into the creature’s face at point-blank range and pulled the trigger. She felt the solid kick of impact, though the flash blinded her for a split second; the enemy vanished from in front of her, its lethal lunge deflected past her shoulder—

“…D-Did I get it?!”

Her heart pounding in her throat, Misora whipped her head around nervously.

Behind her, the Achernar-class insect that had shot past her was spewing green bodily fluid from its ruptured thorax, its remaining legs twitching spasmodically in a futile struggle as its limp body plummeted toward the street below.

Though she hadn’t managed to vaporize it in a single clean hit, she had dealt it a mortal wound all by herself.

“Yeah, her long-range accuracy is still nowhere near ready for prime time…”

Hovering atop his Broom a short distance away, Kanata let a fearless grin slip out, maneuvering smoothly through the air currents to mask his presence from the surrounding Armored Insects.

“Still—not bad at all, Misora.”

Under his breath, he gave her first live kill his genuine praise.

Misora’s greatest strengths were her stamina, her explosive acceleration, and the massive Magic Capacity she had inherited from her mother that fueled them both.

She still had a mountain of flaws to work on—from advanced aerial maneuvers to her actual marksmanship precision, not to mention a bad habit of firing wildly whenever she got impatient—but by the law of averages, even a clumsy marksman was bound to hit the mark eventually if they kept putting rounds downrange.

And on top of that, rough around the edges though it was, Misora now had a genuine Magic Cannon Sword combat technique under her belt.

“I-I did ittttt─────────!”

Ahead in Kanata’s line of sight, Misora let out an exuberant cheer, bouncing up and down in midair like an excited child before getting carried away and turning a joyful somersault in the sky.

Scoring the very first live combat kill of her life clearly had her over the moon.

Feeling a warm swell of pride in his chest as if her triumph were his own, Kanata silently cheered her on to keep it up.

Right up until that moment, everything was going great. Right up until that moment…

Whether Kanata’s silent encouragement reached her or not, flushed with confidence from her first victory, Misora spotted a second Achernar-class insect descending nearby and engaged it at once. Perhaps because it was her second fight, she pressed the attack with far more poise than before, quickly seizing the upper hand. As the insect turned tail and skimmed low across the cobblestones of the street in retreat, Misora fired several standard magic blasts after it.

Every single shot missed cleanly.

As the insect kept dodging her fire, irritation visibly boiled over inside Misora’s head. A dangerous gleam flared in her bellicose eyes. Charge. Charge. Charge. Coming to a dead Hovering stop above the street, she began kneading a massive volume of internal Magic Power—enough firepower to obliterate a heavy Procyon-class insect, let alone a small drone. Seeing the silver-white glow building along her blade, Kanata’s eyes bulged.

“Gah! Hey, hold on, if you let loose a blast like that right in the middle of a residential street—!”

—Magic Cannon Sword Combat Technique—Strike Blaster!

Aiming straight down at the Achernar-class insect skimming just above the pavement, Misora unleashed Strike Blaster at full output. A deafening roar shook the district as an overwhelming torrent of silver-white magical light detonated against the street. Fighting several blocks away, Rico and Lecty no doubt stopped dead in their tracks and stared wide-eyed at the pillar of light.

“Th-This… is definitely not my fault, okay?”

Even Kanata was left so thoroughly dumbfounded that his usual breezy composure deserted him completely.

Misora’s Strike Blaster had vaporized the targeted Achernar-class insect in a microsecond. Not stopping there, however, the beam had punched clean through the cobblestone street beneath it, melting straight through the structural steel girders and reinforced composite deck plates of the city’s upper tier until you could peer right down into the underground utility plants from the sky.

Naturally, the buildings lining both sides of the impact crater had taken the full brunt of the shockwave and thermal wash, leaving half the block reduced to half-collapsed rubble. Among those ruined storefronts was a building Kanata felt sure he had visited just a few days ago, though both he and the girl who had pulled the trigger were too stunned by the smoking crater to register the address right away. As for the culprit herself, Misora was hovering frozen in midair, her mouth opening and closing silently like a landed fish.

“Hmph. The collateral damage is catastrophic. Fortunately, it appears all civilians had already evacuated the area, so there are no casualties, but…”

“…I-I really don’t think we’re supposed to do things like this…”

Gliding over to the edge of the crater came a faintly smug Rico and an ever-conscientious Lecty.

Fighting in their own adjacent sectors, Rico had already sniped two Achernar-class insects out of the sky, while Lecty had cut down five with her twin blades.

“Hmph. This qualifies as a war crime, Misora. Unleashing high-output magic artillery inside the residential dome of a Floating City and causing indiscriminate mass destruction—what possessed you to commit such an atrocity?”

“Th-That’s awful, Misora-san! I-I had no idea you were the kind of person who would do something so reckless!”

Hovering side by side, Kanata, Rico, and Lecty stared down into the gaping hole punched into the street. Everything within a ten-meter radius had been wiped off the map. Before long, other defense squads and Raven Nest officers would inevitably fly over to interrogate them about what had happened. In other words—

“You’re the worst.”

“Truly the worst.”

“The absolute worst.”

All three of them spoke in unison, fixing Misora with identical stares of reproach.

“~~~! W-Why isn’t a single one of you defending me and saying it was an accidental misfire?!”

Snapping out of her stupor, Misora flailed her arms in flustered self-defense.

“I-It’s not like I meant to blow up the street on p-purpose! I-It was an accident, a total fluke! My temper just got the better of me for a second, and before I knew it I’d blown the whole block sky-high with Strike Blaster!!! B-Besides, you’re the one who taught me how to fire this technique in the first place, Kanata! D-Don’t you share at least half the responsibility for this?!”

Though the sheer scale of her property damage was well outside his predictions, Kanata replied without missing a beat:

“I definitely don’t remember ever telling you to blow an entire city block to kingdom come. More importantly… didn’t you just blow up your own family’s café?”

At that exact split second, Misora looked down at the smoking wreckage of her family’s home-and-café, and every drop of blood drained from her face.

Back inside the Guardian Command Center, bathed in the pale electronic glow of the status monitors in the darkened bunker, Freon’s expression had grown grim.

In silence, she stared at the three-dimensional holographic projection of Mistgun, which was steadily being encircled on all sides by a tightening ring of red blips.

Within minutes of the battle’s opening salvos, swarms of red dots had converged on Mistgun from every point of the compass, briefly breaching the defensive screen to spill into the airspace directly above the city.

“This is bad. Total enemy numbers exceed ten thousand…”

“The projection hardly looks like it’s showing that many Armored Insects to me! Besides, none of our battalions have reported heavy casualties yet—aren’t you being overly alarmist, Guardian Leader?”

Cutting in pompously was the short, portly Head of the Economic Department—a man with an incorrigible habit of meddling and lecturing others on military matters well outside his field of expertise.

“We are fighting an engagement directed by a Chimera—which means the enemy is operating with a coordinated strategy. Rather than assuming the blips on screen represent their entire force, it is only rational to assume they are holding a reserve wave in waiting. Furthermore, all seven of our battalions are currently locked in active combat. Right now our Sky Wizards still have their stamina and Magic Power intact, so the lines are holding—but what do you think will happen once their reserves run dry?”

As the Economic Leader soured and fell silent under Freon’s pointed rebuttal, the Academy Director—remarkably calm and collected for her age—spoke up in his stead:

“Our battalions’ casualties will begin mounting exponentially. Which means the decisive question is the location of the Chimera controlling the swarm, correct?”

“Yes, precisely.”

Biting her lower lip, Freon turned toward the communications pit.

“Have our scouts still not located the enemy Commander-Type?”

“No, ma’am, still no visual confirmation…”

Unlike the standard, soldier-type Armored Insects that retained distinct insectoid shapes, a Commander-Type Chimera directed the swarm’s movements from afar. If they could only pinpoint and eliminate that commanding Chimera, they could turn the tide of this battle in a single stroke—yet the creature remained hidden from sight.

Suddenly, one of the operators raised his voice across the bunker:

“Incoming report from the front! A platoon engaged along the Second Defense Line has just spotted an enemy Commander-Type Chimera! It is currently on approach toward the city proper! Target is identified as a medium-sized variant—Chimera Deneb! Accompanied by a massive escort of Achernar-class drones, it is advancing rapidly toward the city! Coordinates: northwest of Mistgun, Sector D-Field, distance approximately 500 meters, altitude 3,000!”

“Chimera Deneb…?”

Strange, Freon thought, resting a hand against her chin. For an invasion force numbering over ten thousand insects to be commanded by a single medium-sized Chimera felt off. Even so, she couldn’t afford to ignore a confirmed Commander-Type closing in on the dome.

“Dispatch all available interceptor platoons to D-Field immediately!”

“Ma’am, every deployed unit is already tied down to capacity! Our outer defense lines are stretched to the breaking point holding back enemy numbers well beyond initial projections—not a single battalion has reserves to spare!”

“Are you telling me we cannot pull a single squad off any of the defense lines?”

“Yes, ma’am! If we thin out any sector of the defense perimeter any further, the entire line risks collapsing!”

After weighing the options for a brief beat, Freon made her decision.

“Then we have no choice. Patch my headset into the city-wide internal PA speakers…”

“What do you intend to do, Guardian Leader?”

“I am ordering the E-Rank platoons inside the city to join the interception operation.”

“B-But if we send E-Rank trainees against a Chimera and its escort, they’ll suffer horrific casualties…!”

Speechless, the operator stared up at Freon.

Keeping her trembling hand hidden behind her back where her subordinates couldn’t see it, Freon forced a composed, unflinching smile onto her lips.

Because sending people to their deaths where their lives would buy the greatest survival rate for the city was the duty of a commander.

“Casualties do not change our math. Someone must strike down that Chimera, and since the E-Rank platoons are the only uncommitted Sky Wizards left within range, it falls to them to carry out the mission. Even if doing so costs a considerable number of their lives, giving everything for the best possible future of humanity is the fate of every Sky Wizard. Issue the order to all E-Rank platoons at once: intercept and subjugate the Chimera!”

“All uncommitted platoons currently assigned to urban defense with remaining combat capacity…” Though phrased in administrative language over the broadcast, the order was unmistakably directed at every E-Rank platoon stationed inside Mistgun.

Their mission: subjugate the approaching Commander-Type variant, Chimera Deneb. Striking down that single target would break the stalemate across the entire battlefield—yet among the E-Rank platoons scattered across the streets, not a single squad moved to take off.

Were they paralyzed by the chaos of their first battle, or frozen in terror at the word Chimera? Probably both.

Yet someone had to do it. With every passing second they hesitated, more blood was being spilled along the outer defense lines.

In the middle of Suburban District 3, Fireteam E601 had gathered around Kanata to confer. Apparently, Kanata had fought Chimera Deneb variants several times during his active duty days.

Then why doesn’t Kanata just fly out there and kill it himself? That would solve everything in one go! Misora thought to herself—yet Kanata was sitting perched atop a pile of concrete rubble with his arms folded, wearing a pensive frown. After a long moment, as if having made up his mind, he stood up, brushed the dust off the seat of his trousers, and casually dropped a bombshell:

“Hey, listen up, you three.”

Looking across Misora, Lecty, and Rico, he said matter-of-factly:

“You guys go take down Chimera Deneb.”

At that outrageous declaration out of nowhere, Misora, Rico, and Lecty all stared at him with their eyes wide as saucers.

“W-We haven’t even won a single E-Rank ranking match yet, and you’re telling us to go fight a live Chimera out of the blue?! W-What kind of insane trial by fire is that?! There’s no way we can pull that off! One tiny mistake out there and any one of us could get killed for real!”

“Misora is entirely right. I cannot believe you are of sound mind.”

“A-Asking us to defeat such a terrifying monster right off the bat is impossible…”

The very first image that flashed through all three girls’ minds was their own defeat.

Among all six thousand citizens aboard Mistgun, not a single soul would have believed that the girls mocked as the academy’s weakest “F-Rank Platoon” stood the slightest chance of winning—

“You haven’t been grinding through training just to go out there and die, have you? You’ve been training to survive no matter what, and to protect as many people as you can. And right now, Chimera or not, the three of you have grown strong enough to take down Chimera Deneb. As your instructor, I guarantee it.”

—Except for Kanata alone, who declared his certainty without a shadow of doubt. Gone was every trace of his usual carefree slouch; he fixed Misora, Lecty, and Rico with the same razor-sharp, dead-serious gaze he had shown up on Hope of Hill.

While the rest of the world laughed at them as a hopeless F-Rank Platoon, this instructor alone genuinely believed in their strength. Realizing that, Misora knew by instinct how she ought to answer as Platoon Leader.

“Listen, you two. Even if he is a pervert, our instructor says he believes in us—and I believe in you guys too, Rico, Lecty. So let’s steel our resolve and do this!”

Stepping forward as Platoon Leader, Misora appealed directly to her two teammates. Over the past week, between grueling training sessions, she had done everything she could in her own clumsy way to build trust among the three of them. How they answered now was up to them.

“I-I-I… I’m aiming to become a Sky Wizard in order to protect the people of the Floating City! S-So I don’t want to give up in a place like this! I want the strength to protect everyone… And when there’s still a chance for us to win and protect everyone aboard Mistgun, I refuse to just stand by in silence and do nothing!”

Though her voice still trembled slightly, Lecty took a firm step forward to stand beside Misora.

“Hmph. Misora, since when did you become grand enough to issue orders to me?”

“R-Rico…!”

“However, your marksmanship earlier was not entirely terrible. Just this once, I suppose I would not be averse to humoring your command. Besides, stealing the spotlight here to show the world my greatness—and solving that woman’s predicament in the process to prove once and for all which of us is truly superior—sounds rather appealing.”

“‘That woman’?”

“Never mind that for now.”

With aristocratic grace, Rico took a step forward to join them.

“Alright, looks like the three of you have made up your minds.”

Kanata spoke in his usual breezy tone.

If they had been the kind of cowards who froze up and cowered in an emergency like this, taking them onto the main battlefield would only have turned them into dead weight. That was why he had tested them first—to see whether, when push came to shove, they had the grit to take that step forward on their own two feet.

A wizard who couldn’t trust their teammates was hopeless, and a wizard who expected someone else to do all the fighting for them was just as bad. By Kanata’s measure, all three girls had just passed with flying colors.

“Once we’re up in the sky, keep your guard up three hundred and sixty degrees. Misora, as Platoon Leader, you call the tactical commands.”

Looking across the three girls, Kanata spoke in a clear, resonant voice that carried absolute conviction:

“I have zero intention of letting any of you die, and I have zero intention of letting the citizens of Mistgun get hurt either. …The three of you can pull this off.”

Wearing expressions brimming with more confidence than they had ever shown in their lives, all three girls nodded in unison.

Sector D-Field. The Second Defense Line. Altitude: 3,000 meters.

Unceasing volleys of magic artillery and clashing steel. Angry battle cries and dying screams. Across the chaotic sky, the silhouettes of Sky Wizards and Armored Insects swirled in a deadly melee.

And floating at the heart of the maelstrom was an enemy of an entirely different breed—a grotesque monstrosity that retained not a single trace of an ordinary insect’s form, leaving any observer wondering what twisted evolutionary path could possibly have spawned such a creature. Though several nearby Sky Wizards had spotted the enemy Commander-Type, none of them could break through its dense escort to lay a finger on it.

“Listen up. Our basic battle plan is the exact same one I drilled into you for the ranking match: Vanguard Lecty disrupts and pins the target, Rearguard Rico backs her up with covering fire, and Mid-Guard Misora delivers the Finishing Blow.”

Hovering atop his Broom at the edge of the sector, Kanata laid out their roles with a sharp gaze.

“That’s Chimera Deneb…? Blegh, it’s covered in writhing tentacles—it looks super gross!”

“Yeah. Don’t let that grotesque look fool you, though—those tentacles whip around crazy fast, so don’t drop your guard for a second.”

Looking like a gigantic, moss-covered walnut split open by a cavernous maw and sprouting countless writhing tentacles, Chimera Deneb was an aberrant Mutant Variant that belonged to no natural evolutionary tree on earth.

Surrounding its bulbous body hovered a dense cloud of hundreds of Achernar-class drones guarding their commander like a living shield. Though scattered magic blasts from distant Guardian squads occasionally arced toward it, none of them came close to inflicting a serious wound.

Every other Guardian platoon in D-Field had its hands completely full just holding its own assigned airspace; none of them had the numbers or leeway to punch through an escort swarm of that size, and drawing the Chimera’s direct aggro risked getting their entire unit wiped out.

“Alright—all three of you, execute the plan!”

Misora, Lecty, and Rico gave a sharp nod. And with that, the academy’s so-called “F-Rank Platoon” charged straight at the Chimera.

“—Here I go!”

Drawing her twin Magic Dual Swords, Amanohabakiri, Lecty dove into a steep power descent, rocketing straight toward the heart of Chimera Deneb’s formation.

Howling wind pressure and turbulent air currents lashed against her cheeks. Instantly detecting her approach, the escort swarm of Achernar-class drones surged forward to intercept her—too many to count at a glance, easily fifty or more. Beyond their dense black wall, the bulbous silhouette of Chimera Deneb loomed into view.

One against fifty. By any normal measure, those odds could hardly even be called a battle—certainly nothing a student belonging to an E-Rank platoon could ever hope to survive.

Yet if there was one exception to that rule, her name was Lecty Eisenach—legitimate heir to the Eisenach school of Magic Dual-Swordsmanship founded by the revered Sword God.

Assuming the classical Hassō Stance in midair, Lecty showed not a trace of fear as she wove into an erratic, spiraling corkscrew flight path. In the opening beat, she flashed past the three lead scout Achernar-class drones. Simultaneously, the twin magic blades in her hands loosed a single silver flash. Her blade speed was so blindingly fast that the steel extending beyond her hilts seemed to vanish into thin air.

The ones who had just been cut down—the three Achernar-class drones—never even registered what had happened to them. A split second after Lecty streaked past, their bodies simply fell apart in midair. Along with sprays of green hemolymph, their antennae, wings, forelegs, hind legs, and mandibles separated cleanly into neatly diced segments.

“W-What did you just do, Lecty?!”

“What do you mean…? I simply slashed them, Misora-san.”

Two flashes, ten lethal cuts. Lecty inwardly tilted her head, wondering why Misora sounded so shocked over something this obvious—basic Eisenach-Style Magic Dual-Swordsmanship. All she had done was execute the foundational forms drilled into her since early childhood…

Because she wasn’t fighting human opponents in an arena, she didn’t have to worry about people staring at her, nor did she need to hold back for fear of injuring a classmate. For a girl crippled by stage fright, inhuman monsters were ironically far easier opponents to face—leaving aside how terrifying a real battlefield was.

“Lecty. On that third insect just now, you only landed five cuts instead of seven like the first two. Looks like your shoulders are still a little stiff, so loosen up and breathe.”

“Y-Yes, Kanata-san! I’ll be more careful on the next pass!”

To Misora’s eyes, the insects had simply exploded into pieces the instant Lecty flew past them, making Kanata’s critique sound just as superhuman as Lecty’s swordplay.

Using the bodies of the Achernar-class drones themselves as midair stepping stones, Lecty bounded from one target to the next like a dancer leaping across river stones, carving a path straight toward her prey.

They aren’t human opponents. I don’t have to worry about anyone staring at me, and I don’t have to hold back so I don’t hurt them. I’m still a little nervous and haven’t brought out my full strength yet, but I can do this… No—I WILL do this! For my teammates’ sake—

“Lecty, keep pushing straight ahead along that vector!”

“Right!”

Receiving Misora’s command over the Communication Crystal, Lecty surged straight toward Chimera Deneb. Though scores of Achernar-class drones swarmed around the perimeter, intimidated by her lethal blade work, they hesitated to dive in recklessly, instead inching closer to hem her in.

Judging she had an opening, Lecty lunged forward to close to melee range with Chimera Deneb. That exact instant, feeling the air shriek against her skin, she reflexively crossed her twin swords and deflected a whipping tentacle strike.

Directly behind her exposed back, however, rose an ominous buzz of wings. Five escorting Achernar-class drones dove into her blind spot at once to tear her limb from limb.

“………!”

Sensing them a fraction of a second too late, Lecty twisted only her neck back and braced to be bitten—when a streak of pale blue magic gunfire lanced in from afar and blew the attacking drones out of the sky.

“R-Rico-san!”

Looking back with a gasp of relief, Lecty spotted Rico, who had advanced all the way up to the mid-guard line with her sniper rifle braced against her shoulder.

“Huh. For someone who only snipes when the mood strikes her, your marksmanship’s as sharp as ever, Rico.”

“Hmph. You may praise me more.”

Shouldering her sniper-rifle-shaped Magic Gun, Athena, Rico squeezed the trigger again and again in smooth succession.

Razor-sharp magic bullets lanced across the sky, intercepting high-speed Achernar-class drones in mid-flight as though she could read their minds seconds in advance.

Sniping high-speed aerial targets at long range—even Kanata in his prime could only lay down general covering fire at this distance, whereas Rico was executing pinpoint precision sniping.

Though both belonged to the ranged gunnery class, Rico operated in a sniper’s realm that Misora couldn’t even begin to fathom.

The world of a Rearguard Magic Gunner was unforgiving. A single stray magic bullet could easily claim the life of an ally locked in melee. Accurately reading the flow of a chaotic three-dimensional battlefield, predicting the exact movements of both friend and foe, and threading shots through the melee was a feat only a handful of marksmen in the entire Guardian Department could pull off.

Fired with icy precision, every magic bullet from Athena threaded the needle to pierce its target clean through.

Matching her rhythm to Vanguard Lecty’s footwork, Rico covered not only the rearguard sector but the entire mid-guard airspace as well, picking off every insect that lunged toward Lecty’s blind spots—a tour de force made possible by her extraordinary peripheral awareness and split-second judgment.

And to anyone watching from the sidelines, Rico made it look as effortless as casually raising her rifle and pulling the trigger. That was just how transcendent her sniping technique was.

If her claim that she never practiced was actually true, then when it came to marksmanship, she truly possessed a heaven-sent gift.

“Once we strike down this Chimera, my standing within the Guardian Department will no doubt skyrocket.”

Trailing behind Lecty like the tail of a comet came a swarming train of hundreds of Achernar-class drones—with Chimera Deneb itself pulled along in their wake.

Just as Kanata’s strategy dictated, the entire enemy formation was being kited by Lecty.

With Rico providing precision sniping support from behind, the two girls alone were effectively tying down a swarm of more than three hundred Armored Insects.

Of course, that feat was only possible thanks to the combination of Lecty’s peerless dual-swordsmanship and Rico’s godlike sniping and tactical judgment; rather than slaughtering all three hundred insects outright, they were herding and stalling the swarm.

And naturally, there was a hard time limit. Lecty’s physical stamina, and Rico’s mental concentration. The moment either one of those gave out, the diversion would collapse—and both girls would be devoured by the swarm in seconds.

Yet while the two of them bought precious time, the final member of their squad was fighting to build up the power needed to deliver the Finishing Blow.

“Hmm. Future historians will doubtless record this battle thus: Rico Flamel truly possessed power worthy of the reincarnation of a goddess.”

Even in the middle of active sniping, Rico took her eye off her scope for a beat to glance over at Kanata and boast.

Letting out a light sigh, Kanata said nothing and simply pointed his right index finger straight up above Rico’s head.

“Do not worry. There is no problem.”

Directly above where Kanata was pointing, a lone Achernar-class drone that had slipped around their flank was diving straight down at Rico’s crown.

Without even bothering to look up, Rico confidently raised her right hand gripping Athena straight overhead one-handed and squeezed the trigger. The very next instant, a dark green firework of insect hemolymph and shattered carapace blossomed across the sky above her.

“Hmph. That drone was simply unfortunate. For an unsightly creature capable only of devouring humans to dare attempt to devour me—learn the hard way that you are ten thousand years too early to challenge a goddess.”

“Misora! An opening just opened up at your seven o’clock! The free airspace is shifting every second, so keep flying and focus everything on your Charge!”

Kanata’s voice barked over her Communication Crystal from across the sector.

“I-I know that already!”

…Even if you tell me to just keep charging while I fly!

The grating screech of insect wings filled her ears as a pack of Achernar-class drones circled around her in a tightening net. Roughly twenty drones had broken off from the main swarm to pursue Misora—less than a fifteenth of the horde Lecty was kiting, yet for Misora alone, the pressure was suffocating.

Desperately scanning above, below, left, right, front, and back, Misora searched for a gap in the encirclement.

No matter which way she jinked or banked, the Achernar-class drones clung to her like shadows, cutting off her escape routes. Concentrating on kneading Magic Power was almost impossible when she had to fly erratically with everything she had just to avoid getting impaled.

Closing in bit by bit around the frantic girl, a pair of black shadows lunged in unison. While the defensive Barrier Formula woven into her Protector blocked fatal wounds on grazing hits, every impact drained away a chunk of the refined Magic Power she had painstakingly built up for her cannon blast.

“Not that way, Misora! Bank the opposite direction!”

“I get what you’re saying, but I can’t maneuver that cleanly while— Gah!”

All of a sudden, a pair of snapping mandibles filled her vision dead ahead. Panic threw off her rhythm, destabilizing her flight posture and leaving her a split second too late to evade. I can’t dodge it! Yet the very next instant, the insect’s silhouette split cleanly in two from head to tail as green hemolymph sprayed across the air.

“Calm down, Misora. You’re the linchpin of this entire operation, remember?”

Hovering right beside her was Kanata, a magic dagger dripping with green fluid gripped in his left hand.

“Y-You…”

“Come on, Misora, quit spacing out and keep moving! Both Rico and Lecty are putting their lives on the line right now to buy time for you!”

“B-But…”

At my current turning speed, I can’t shake this pack off!

Flying wingtip-to-wingtip alongside Kanata on his Broom, Misora was still being hounded so closely by the pursuing drones that the two of them ended up pressed back-to-back in midair. Enemies surrounded them in every direction. Taking on a swarm of this size with a three-girl squad felt beyond unfavorable—it felt downright suicidal.

Yet the boy guarding her back had looked them in the eye and promised they could win.

“Misora, forget all about complicated evasive maneuvers right now and fly in a dead straight line without worrying about anything else! Your greatest weapon shines brightest on a straightaway!”

Parrying an Achernar-class drone’s lunge by a hair’s breadth and slicing it down on the backswing, Kanata called out in a single breath:

“Don’t hesitate—just rocket straight up into the heavens! Blow right past all of ’em with a Vertical Boost! Do that, and you’re guaranteed to shake every last pursuer off your tail!”

“G-Got it…!”

Abandoning her clumsy, zigzagging evasive turns at once, Misora pointed her chin straight toward the zenith.

Though the surrounding Achernar-class drones lunged at her like bullets, Misora’s explosive initial acceleration left only an afterimage in their jaws. It was the optical illusion of velocity born from her instantaneous burst from zero to top speed—a discrepancy of less than a tenth of a second in the middle of a chaotic dogfight, yet that tiny fraction of a second shattered every prediction and left her pursuers biting empty air.

Tucking her chin in and fixing her eyes on the deep blue sky far overhead, Misora poured on the acceleration as if intending to blast all the way into the stratosphere.

Altitude 3,200 meters. 3,400. 4,000. 4,800—

Faced with a rate of climb so ferocious it defied belief, even the pursuing Armored Insects were forced to abandon the chase and fall behind.

Trailing a faint contrail of white vapor behind her, her flight path drew a ramrod-straight vertical line into the heavens until she broke out into the clear upper sky overlooking the entire battlefield below. That was Misora’s world—her sky.

“Listen up: that trick’s only gonna work once! Those bugs aren’t complete idiots—next time they’ll anticipate your vertical speed, climb up to this altitude ahead of time, and ceiling-block you from above. So make sure you finish kneading your Magic Power to a hundred percent right now!”

Far below, Kanata was deftly parrying and drawing away the straggling drones that had tried to follow her climb.

Looking down from high above the fray, Misora could take in the entire tactical picture at a glance: Lecty weaving at the head of a massive black ribbon of Achernar-class drones with Chimera Deneb trailing right behind her, Rico threading blue sniper rounds through the pack to keep Lecty alive, and Kanata darting across the flanks to intercept any insects that broke off toward Misora.

While the three of them held the line for her below, Misora poured every ounce of focus into kneading the Magic Power required to annihilate their target. Fully charged to capacity, the six-chamber rotary cylinder Magic Degeneracy Reactor built into her hilt engaged with a heavy metallic clack-chak, and her silver-white Magic Cannon Sword, Razgriz, began to pulse with a mystical, blinding luminescence.

“Charge Complete!”

Misora shouted into her Communication Crystal at the top of her lungs.

“…Lecty’s kiting the target into position right now, so dive straight down toward Lecty’s coordinates!”

“Got it!”

All the while she had spent hovering in safety just to charge her Magic Power, her teammates had been fighting tooth and nail to buy her every single second. Determined to answer their trust and save her friends as fast as possible, Misora kicked off into a vertical power dive straight toward Lecty’s position.

Directly ahead in her line of sight, Lecty came retreating backward at full speed, beads of sweat flying from her brow as she lured the swarm behind her.

“Hurry and clear out of the line of fire, Lecty!”

“I’m okay, Misora-san! I can still hold them for another— M-Misora-san! Look out behind you!”

Startled, Misora whipped her head around. She checked her six o’clock high, but the sky behind her was empty.

Then she dropped her gaze a fraction lower. Streaking up from her blind spot beneath her feet like a thrusting horn was a lone Achernar-class insect.

“Gah…!”

In a panic, Misora swung the long barrel of her Magic Cannon Sword around to bat it away. Unlike close-combat specialists like Lecty or Rico, however, Misora’s telegraphed swing was effortlessly dodged as the insect executed a smooth Barrel Roll in midair.

Frantically, Misora tried to trigger the defensive Magical Barrier of her Protector to absorb the insect’s body-slam—only to realize that because she had channeled virtually all of her refined Magic Power into Razgriz’s reactor for Strike Blaster, she didn’t have enough loose magic left in her body to erect a barrier.

Recognizing in a split second that she couldn’t dodge the impact, Misora clamped both hands around the hilt of her Magic Cannon Sword, swearing that no matter how hard she got hit, she wouldn’t let go of her blade or lose her charge.

The very next instant, a heavy impact jolted against her back.

Did it just bite my shoulder off?! Yet for a mortal wound, she felt almost no pain at all. Trembling, Misora cracked her eyes open—and saw Kanata hovering on his Broom right beside her, bright red blood pouring from a deep gash across his right shoulder.

“Misora, the Chimera’s right in front of you. …You ready?”

Driving the magic dagger in his left hand clean through the attacking Achernar-class drone’s compound eye, Kanata barked his order without flinching.

“Y-You’re bleeding—!”

“I told you before we took off, didn’t I? I have zero intention of letting any of you die.”

Kanata spoke as calmly as if nothing had happened at all. Though a wound that deep had to hurt like hell, he barely grimaced, refusing to let out a single groan.

At that moment, Misora still had no idea just how deep the iron resolve at the core of Kanata Age truly ran.

“Hey, Kanata! Another scattered pack of Achernar-class drones just broke off toward your position! They’ve spotted you! Lecty is bringing Chimera Deneb into your firing arc right now!”

“Tch, can’t be helped. Lecty, keep leading the big one straight in! I’ll clear out all the small fry around us!”

Even as Misora stared anxiously at the blood soaking through the right shoulder of his uniform, Kanata turned toward her with a fearless grin.

“Alright, our guest of honor has come all this way just to meet you. Misora—for a sharpshooter talented enough to blow her own house off the map, there’s zero chance you’re gonna miss a target that big, right?”

“O-Of course I’m not gonna miss! After everyone set the stage for me like this, missing now would disqualify me as Platoon Leader forever!”

Leaving her with a nod, Kanata kicked his Broom forward to intercept the incoming pack of drones.

Misora couldn’t even bring herself to ask “Are you okay?”

One look at the blood running down his arm made it obvious he wasn’t okay.

Boiling inside her chest was fierce anger at her own helplessness for letting him take a hit for her. Pouring even that burning frustration straight into her weapon, Misora locked her sights dead ahead—past Lecty’s retreating back, past the vanguard of pursuing Achernar-class drones, straight onto the bulbous silhouette of Chimera Deneb.

The Commander-Type Chimera that had brought carnage to this sky. If she obliterated that creature right here, this battle would be over.

And so she poured every last drop of her heart and soul into this single strike.

“Remember this well, you gross tentacle monster!”

At that instant, Lecty flashed past Misora’s flank to clear the firing lane. As they crossed paths, Lecty called out words of encouragement, though in her tunnel-vision focus, Misora didn’t even hear them.

She was giving it everything she had—for the sake of the two squadmates fighting beside her, and for the sake of Kanata, who had coached her relentlessly and just spilled his own blood to shield her.

Tucking her right elbow tightly against her ribs and bracing the barrel of her silver-white Magic Cannon Sword, Razgriz, with her left hand, Misora gave voice to the prayers of every Sky Wizard fighting to defend this airspace, this city, and this world:

“────We are the Sky Wizards of Mistgun!”

And with that cry, she squeezed the trigger on the handguard.

A heaven-shaking roar. Ferocious recoil that felt ready to wrench both arms out of their shoulder sockets. And bursting from the muzzle of her blade—a blinding torrent of silver-white light that scorched the heavens.

Filled with the full weight of her resolve, the vortex of purifying white light swallowed the vanguard pack of Achernar-class drones whole.

They vaporized in a microsecond. Every last one of them.

So overwhelming was the brilliance of that silver-white beam that even calling it a contest of strength felt laughable.

Streaking straight through the vaporized escort, the beam slammed dead-center into Chimera Deneb hovering in the rear. Without mercy, that single strike cored a massive, smoking hole clean through the center of its walnut-shaped carapace, blowing the monster apart from the inside out before its shattered remains began plummeting from the sky.

A single strike. Yet that first and final shot, carrying everything they had, pierced clean through the heart of the enemy formation—

Carrying Misora’s vow, Kanata’s conviction, and the hopes of every Sky Wizard aboard Mistgun…

“Haaah, haaah… D-Did we win?”

“I-I think we won, didn’t we?!”

“Hmm. It certainly looks as though we have triumphed… Did we win?”

Gliding back together, Lecty and Rico regrouped beside Misora, all three of them breathing hard as they tried to process the outcome.

Sure enough, the remaining Achernar-class drones that had been swarming around Sector D-Field abruptly broke off their attack and began retreating into the distance.

“Yeah, for the moment, we didn’t lose. Don’t drop your guard yet, though.”

Returning to their side, Kanata spoke in his usual breezy drawl. Despite the bleeding wound on his right shoulder, he had expended the least stamina and Magic Power of the four.

“B-But why is everyone else in the other sectors still fighting?!”

Looking past D-Field, Misora stared out at the neighboring defense sectors around Mistgun. While the swarm in D-Field was pulling back, fierce fighting was still raging across every other quadrant of the sky, where flashes of Magic Gunfire and Bombardment continued to light up the horizon without pause.

They had just annihilated the Commander-Type Chimera. By every rule of Armored Insect warfare, the entire swarm should have lost cohesion and begun a full retreat. And yet…

“W-Why aren’t the rest of the insects retreating when we already took down their Commander-Type Chimera?!”

The Guardian Command Center.

“What is the meaning of this?! We’ve already destroyed the enemy Chimera, yet their offensive hasn’t slowed down in the slightest!”

“S-Sir! Only a small fraction of the Armored Insects in Sector D-Field have pulled back—the main force is still pressing the attack!”

At the operator’s report, the Head of the Economic Department bellowed in panic across the bunker.

On the magically projected 3D display of Mistgun, while a localized cluster of red blips in the northwest sector was receding, the vast majority of the crimson swarm remained latched onto the outer defense lines.

More than two thousand Sky Wizards were still locked in desperate combat—undeniable proof that the enemy had no intention of retreating.

Having erupted into brief cheers moments earlier when word arrived of Chimera Deneb’s destruction, the operators in the command pit now sank into crushing dismay. And if the staff inside the bunker felt this disheartened, the confusion and exhaustion among the front-line Guardian platoons fighting for their lives had to be ten times worse.

Resting a hand against her chin, Freon spoke up:

“There is no mistake in the confirmation report that Chimera Deneb was destroyed, correct?”

“None, ma’am! Visual confirmation of its annihilation was reported directly from Sector D-Field.”

“Double-check all sensor feeds across every sector. Furthermore, until we locate the true source of the enemy’s command network, begin a phased contraction of our defense perimeter. At this rate of attrition, every battalion on the outer line will reach its combat limit before long.”

Freon thought back to the nagging sense of unease she had felt the moment Chimera Deneb was first sighted.

Could a single medium-sized Chimera truly coordinate an Armored Insect swarm numbering over ten thousand strong? In the first place, for a Commander-Type variant to expose itself all the way up at the Second Defense Line was virtually unheard of.

An anomaly that defied standard insect behavior. And on the battlefield, every anomaly happened for a reason.

An unnaturally bold advance. A deliberate move to draw the defenders’ eyes. Could it be that the Chimera that exposed itself in D-Field was nothing more than a decoy—a diversion meant to bait us? Following that train of thought to its logical conclusion, Freon suddenly realized the true nature of her unease.

“Tell me—have any of you heard the recent theories regarding Armored Insect intelligence?”

“Intelligence? In mindless monsters like those bugs…?”

Caught off guard by her question, the Economic Leader shook his head dismissively.

“According to recent anatomical studies conducted by the Medicine Department, the cognitive intelligence of Chimera variants is far higher than humanity has historically assumed. Because of the grotesque, monstrous appearance of the Armored Insects, humans naturally fear them—yet at the same time, we tend to underestimate them as mindless beasts incapable of complex strategy. The Medicine Department’s findings suggest that if Chimera variants are continuing to evolve at an accelerated rate, it would not be unnatural for specimens possessing intelligence equal—or even superior—to human beings to have emerged.”

“W-What does a research hypothesis like that have to do with our current situation…?!”

Directly in front of them, the red blips on Mistgun’s 3D projection showed no sign of diminishing, continuing to maneuver with terrifyingly disciplined coordination. Freon’s obsidian eyes widened a fraction before hardening with razor-sharp intensity.

“In other words—”

“There’s more than one Chimera out here?!”

Kanata dropped the revelation so casually that Misora nearly let it slip right past her ears. While Misora, Lecty, and Rico stared at him in wide-eyed shock, Kanata looked back at them with a puzzled frown as the retreating drones of D-Field faded into the distance behind them.

“Hm? Didn’t I literally just say ‘for the moment, we didn’t lose’?”

“Y-Yes, you certainly did say that, Kanata-san, but…”

“See? I told you plain as day that we hadn’t lost yet.”

“W-What is that supposed to mean?!”

“Wait… Do not tell me that by saying ‘we didn’t lose,’ you meant ‘we haven’t won yet either’…?”

“Yeah, that’s what those words mean…”

“W-Why do you always gloss over huge bombshells like that so nonchalantly?!”

“Hey, I also told you ‘don’t drop your guard yet,’ didn’t I…?”

Kanata shrugged as breezily as ever. Boiling his cryptic remarks down to plain language, however, meant one thing:

“—W-Wait a second… Did you know from the very beginning that there was more than one Chimera out here?!”

“Hm? Didn’t I mention that? With a swarm of standard drones this massive, having only a single medium Chimera directing them was obviously way too light.”

“““—You didn’t say a single word about that!!!”””

All three girls roared at him in three-part harmony.

Right then, the pieces clicked together inside Misora’s head. That’s why Kanata held back from fighting directly in our clash with Chimera Deneb earlier…

From the very beginning, judging by the sheer scale of the swarm and the coordination of its assault, Kanata had deduced that there had to be another, larger Commander-Type Chimera pulling the strings—and had deliberately conserved his own strength to deal with the real boss. While everyone else was scrambling to survive what was right in front of them, he had calmly analyzed the entire battlefield and read several moves ahead of the Armored Insects.

Misora looked up at Kanata with a mixture of awe and newfound respect—though Kanata himself showed not the slightest hint of pride in his deduction, his expression remaining as unreadable and unbothered as ever.

“Problem is, we still don’t know where the real commander’s hiding. Have any of you gotten an update from headquarters over the crystal…?”

“Umm, nothing has come through on my channel yet………”

There was no doubt whatsoever that another Chimera was out there somewhere, yet they had no way of pinpointing its coordinates across the vast sky.

Just as Kanata started racking his brains for a way to track the creature down, Rico spoke up beside him.

“In other words, in order to protect the people of Mistgun, we need to locate a large-class Chimera hiding somewhere beyond the battlefield, correct?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Especially since it looks like our battalions are starting a phased retreat to shrink the perimeter—if we don’t find the real commander soon, things are gonna get critical fast.”

“W-What are we supposed to do, then?!”

“Hmph. It cannot be helped, I suppose. Perhaps it is time for me to get slightly serious as well.”

Sensing a sudden shift in her aura, Kanata turned his head toward Rico—and blinked when he saw a pair of red-framed eyeglasses resting across the bridge of her nose…

“Hm? Hey, Rico, why are you wearing glasses all of a sudden?”

“Hmph. I have little choice in the matter. Because my upperclassmen in the Guardian Department are so thoroughly incompetent, unless a goddess like myself puts forth her full power, we will have no city left to return to. After I went to the trouble of distinguishing myself by slaying one Chimera already, it would be rather lonely if every mortal left to revere my triumph were wiped out.”

Then, with visible reluctance, Rico tacked on an explanation:

“Whenever I activate my Clairvoyance, my eyes cannot properly adjust their focal point on their own. Therefore, much as I despise them, I am forced to wear these unsightly spectacles that obscure my peerless beauty.”

Kanata looked at her with genuine admiration—impressed that she had stepped up to use her trump card before he even had to ask.

Rico, however, was trembling faintly at the shoulders as she wore the glasses, tapping her index fingers together in front of her chest with a bashful, self-conscious fidgeting completely at odds with her usual haughty demeanor.

“T-To wear something so… so detrimental to my flawless beauty goes against every fiber of my being, and yet…”

“Hey, those glasses actually look really good on you, so what’s the problem?”

At Kanata’s honest, straightforward compliment, Rico froze.

“I-Is that so? Well… perhaps they do suit me… just a little.”

Though she was thoroughly immune to flowery flattery, being praised so simply and earnestly made Rico blush despite herself.

Clearing her throat to regain her composure, Rico activated her supreme-grade detection unique skill: Clairvoyance. Instantly, an iridescent, rainbow-colored luminescence flared within her obsidian eyes.

By using Magic Power reinforcement to hyper-accelerate the visual processing nerves, Clairvoyance granted its wielder omnidirectional three-hundred-and-sixty-degree awareness alongside ultra-long-range telescopic vision far beyond human biology. Put simply—it allowed her to see all creation across the sky.

Of course, it still couldn’t see through solid physical cover, and because processing that flood of visual data placed an extraordinary strain on the brain’s calculation centers, it wasn’t a skill she could keep active for long.

“…Found it. Target count… one. However, it is positioned at an extreme distance from our current sector. And what’s more—”

For once, genuine shock crept into Rico’s voice as she relayed what she saw.

“—It is massive. Colossal beyond belief. Hundreds of Achernar-class drones are clinging to its outer shell, yet against its bulk, two-meter Achernar-class insects look like nothing more than tiny gnats. The Chimera Deneb we just fought does not even begin to compare. …Bearing: directly toward the sun, well outside the active combat zone!”

The instant he heard that description, a fleeting shadow crossed Kanata’s face.

“That’s almost certainly Chimera Antares—the Carrier-Type Chimera whose existence the Medicine Department hypothesized as a high-intelligence mother variant. Not only does it serve as an aerial carrier spawning and transporting swarms of Achernar-class drones inside its shell, its tactical intelligence is rumored to be in a league of its own compared to ordinary Chimeras. Though this is my first time actually laying eyes on one in the flesh, too.”

As if stating the most natural thing in the world, Kanata narrowed his eyes toward the sun and pivoted the nose of his Broom toward the outer sky.

“Since the defense lines are contracting in stages, the three of you fall back toward the city with the other units. I’ll go take care of the big guy.”

“Wait—don’t tell me you’re planning to go subjugate a monster that colossal all by yourself?!”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“Th-That’s impossible, obviously!”

“It’s not impossible at all.”

Kanata stated it flatly, without a shred of hesitation. Turning his deep, magnetic dark eyes toward Misora and her two teammates, he continued:

“Because the three of you fought your hearts out to take down Chimera Deneb by yourselves, I was able to save my reserves for this exact moment. So now it’s my turn to answer your hard work. Besides, I’m not dumb enough to pick a fight I don’t have a way to win.”

Under normal circumstances, discovering a Carrier-Type Chimera called for alerting headquarters at once and organizing a multi-platoon strike force to bring it down together. Yet Kanata deliberately chose not to. Branded as the academy’s notorious traitor, his warnings wouldn’t carry weight with the command staff in time—and more importantly, there was no one else available who could match his pace in a solo strike.

Just as he kicked his Broom to rocket off alone, however, a pair of slender arms wrapped tightly around his waist from behind.

“Hm? Why the heck are you climbing onto my Broom, Misora?”

“…I want to see how you fight as a Magic Cannon Swordsman with my own eyes, so I’m coming with you.”

Having hopped onto the tail of Kanata’s Broom by force, Misora looked up at him with a quiet, aching intensity in her eyes.

In truth, she was worried sick about him. If the signs of Magic Depletion she had glimpsed during their high-altitude training hadn’t been a trick of her eyes… she felt deep in her bones that she couldn’t let him fly out there alone.

“Listen, Rico, Lecty! The two of you head back to the city ahead of us! I’ve still got some Magic Power left in the tank, so I’m going with him!”

“It’s way too dangerous out there, Misora. Get off and head back with them.”

Reaching back to pry Misora’s hands loose, Kanata stopped when he met her eyes. Burning inside them was the exact same unyielding resolve she had shown him in front of her mother’s grave on Hope of Hill.

“No way. No matter what you say, I’m coming with you.”

“Man, you’re stubborn… Alright, fine. You two—stick together and watch each other’s backs on the way home!”

Perhaps sensing the immovable resolve in Misora’s grip—and guessing she had her own reasons for refusing to let go—Kanata gave up on trying to shake her off.

Judging that wasting any more time arguing would only invite the other two to tag along as well, he kicked Black Hawk into full throttle at once.

Left hovering behind in bewildered confusion over why Misora had suddenly insisted on riding off with Kanata, Rico and Lecty snapped out of their daze a beat later and cried out after them:

“Misora!”

“Kanata-san!”

In the blink of an eye, the two figures aboard the jet-black board shrank into the blinding glare of the distant sky.

Sector D-Field. The First Defense Line.

Having fought her way back from her outer patrol route alongside Lloyd and Yuri, Chloe had finally managed to link up with the front-line defense perimeter protecting Mistgun.

Defense. Interception. Counterattack. Annihilation.

Exercising the field authority of the Royal Guard, Chloe took command of the beleaguered platoons in her sector, issuing brisk tactical adjustments to stabilize the crumbling line. Even so, against the seemingly inexhaustible tide of Armored Insects, one exhausted Sky Wizard after another was forced to drop out of formation.

“It looks like Freon is ordering a phased contraction of the defense perimeter.”

“Pulling the lines inward should help reduce the immediate combat load on our fatigued platoons, though with the insects clinging this tightly to our vanguard, executing a clean fighting retreat is proving difficult.”

Just as Chloe and Lloyd noted, while Freon’s command to shrink the perimeter was the right call on paper, accumulating exhaustion on the front lines was triggering one costly mistake after another.

Amid the swirling melee, Chloe noticed Yuri suddenly freeze in midair with her mouth slightly open.

“What’s wrong, Yuri?”

Even as she called out, Chloe’s hands moved without wasted motion, rapid-firing a volley of high-tracking Small Homing Magic Cannon blasts from her staff. Trailing twin ribbons of crimson light, four compact magic shells curved along gentle arcs through the melee to blow four giant fly-like drones to pieces without grazing a single friendly fighter.

Chloe still had plenty of Magic Power in reserve to unleash a wide-area bombardment, yet in a chaotic dogfight where friend and foe were tangled together at close quarters, firing a large-scale blast without disciplined formation coordination from neighboring squads risked hitting allies—leaving her chafing in frustration as she stuck to precision homing shots.

“Hold on tight, Misora—we’re punching straight through at top speed! Every second we waste costs more casualties along the defense line!”

“W-Wait a second, you— N-No way—!”

“C-Could that be… Kanata-senpai?!”

Right in the middle of the battlefield, Yuri halted in her tracks, staring wide-eyed up at a streak of black slicing across the upper sky.

Cutting straight through the heart of the contested airspace was the traitorous former ace deftly piloting his jet-black Broom, with a crimson-haired girl clinging tightly to his back.

Though dozens of Achernar-class drones immediately broke off to intercept him, Kanata’s customized Black Hawk carved a razor-sharp, fluid corkscrew spiral through the sky, weaving effortlessly past every lunging insect as he rocketed toward the sun with unmistakable purpose.

That kind of maneuverability was impossible on a standard Broom; it was superhuman board-handling achievable only by someone who could read wind direction, wind velocity, barometric pressure, and every subtle eddy of the atmosphere in real time.

By the time Chloe turned her head to follow Yuri’s gaze, a fresh wave of Achernar-class drones surged across their line of sight, forcing them back into close-quarters combat and obscuring the distant pair from view—

“See? Didn’t I tell you to have faith in Kanata…?”

Even from a single fleeting glimpse, Chloe knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the rider was Kanata.

“Lloyd-senpai, um… do you know the real reason behind Kanata-senpai’s circumstances?”

“No, I don’t know the specifics at all. What I do know, however, is that Kanata has never stopped fighting to protect the people of this city.”

Sensing the rigid ice around Yuri’s heart beginning to thaw in the middle of battle, Chloe spoke in a warm, gentle voice:

“Kanata hasn’t changed a bit from the person you used to look up to so much, Yuri. He just… has some complicated circumstances right now. Circumstances he couldn’t bring himself to burden a trusted junior like you with. So the next time you see him, talk to him the way you used to… Yuri?”

“He certainly didn’t look like someone running away from battle…”

“Yep. Abandoning the comrades and city he’s sworn to protect is the one thing Kanata could never do.”

“…………Deep down, I think I already knew that a little.”

As if finally admitting something she had stubbornly denied for months, Yuri lowered her gaze for a brief beat.

Deep down, she had sensed all along that something had happened to him during that mission six months ago, and that he was keeping quiet to keep her from worrying. Yet because the two of them had fought side by side as S128’s vanguard “Two-Top” duo, being shut out without a single word of explanation had hurt terribly—leaving a lonely, aching thorn lodged in her chest…

“…Yuri!”

Before they could say another word, five Achernar-class drones dove straight at the two girls with an ominous roar of beating wings. Banishing the wistful look from her face in an instant, Yuri schooled her expression and readied her Magic Sword.

“My apologies, Chloe-senpai. Right now, I’ll focus entirely on the battle!”

Once we make it through this battle alive, I’ll go talk to Kanata-senpai face-to-face again.

Yuri swore that silent vow in her heart as she lunged forward to meet the enemy.

When Misora first laid eyes on the entity ahead of them, she genuinely mistook it for a storm cloud—a massive, dark cumulonimbus anvil blotting out the sun. Moments later, however, she realized with a chill down her spine how wrong she was.

The Carrier-Type Chimera—Chimera Antares.

The towering black storm cloud blocking the sunlight was merely a camouflage veil shrouding its colossal body.

Stretching well over a hundred meters across from rim to rim, its disc-like carapace was shaped like two giant bowls pressed together face-to-face. Hovering silently in the upper sky, its gargantuan bulk looked like nothing less than an iron fortress floating in the heavens.

All across the surface of its armored hull, dozens of heavy eyelids peeled open in unison. As scores of glowing crimson eyes locked onto Kanata and Misora, a living curtain of countless Achernar-class drones roosting across its outer shell detached and surged forward to intercept them.

Blocking their path first was humanity’s oldest and deadliest bane: an Achernar-class swarm.

Individually, a single Achernar-class drone was weak. Yet the true terror of the breed lay in its suffocating numbers; statistically speaking, Achernar-class swarms had slaughtered more human beings over the centuries than all other classes of Armored Insect combined.

“A-Are you seriously gonna be okay out here?!”

Clinging to the back of the board, Misora stared nervously at the incoming black wall.

The opening clash. Kanata’s left arm swept in a blinding arc from his right shoulder down past his left hip.

From the jet-black blade of Gladius gripped in his left hand erupted a tempest of crushing sword pressure. Cleaving the very air apart, a single swing of his greatsword smashed and bisected three Achernar-class drones simultaneously.

“Hm. About what I figured.”

Three insects felled in the first stroke; two more crushed on the backswing. When it came to sweeping aside oncoming foes, Kanata’s swordsmanship was the epitome of “Might”—utterly unlike Lecty’s flowing, razor-clean “Slashing” dance, his single-handed greatsword strokes smashed through carapaces like a wrecking ball through sheer overwhelming blade pressure.

“B-But no matter how strong you are, taking on a swarm this huge all by yourself………”

Having already burned through nearly all of her Magic Power firing that full-output Strike Blaster against Chimera Deneb, Misora barely had enough magic left to stay upright. Even though she had insisted on tagging along out of worry for Kanata, all she could do right now was cling to the tail of his board and watch him fight.

And for the past several minutes, far from closing the distance to Chimera Antares, Kanata had been forced onto the pure defensive—parrying and weaving just to keep them from taking a fatal hit.

Though Misora lacked talent for Magic Swordsmanship herself, she had swung a Magic Cannon Sword enough thousands of times to spot the glaring unnaturalness in Kanata’s form.

His swings with the heavy Magic Cannon Sword were noticeably sluggish. No matter how deftly he twisted his torso to eliminate blind spots, a top-heavy greatsword like Gladius was meant to be wielded with both hands when fending off a swarm at close quarters.

“…Wait—is that because of the shoulder wound you took saving me earlier?!”

Realizing why his right arm was hanging motionless at his side, Misora gasped. Kanata was swinging the massive greatsword using only his left arm.

Firing a single cannon blast one-handed was one thing, but unleashing continuous melee combinations against a pack of agile small-class drones was infinitely harder one-handed than two-handed. Yet Kanata answered in a flat murmur:

“Has nothing to do with that.”

“B-But…”

“Getting injured in the middle of a battle is the fault of the guy who took the hit. My situational judgment was a split second slow back there. That’s all there is to it.”

Even though he was careful to minimize the jostling on his right shoulder, every clash of steel sent a lance of white-hot pain shooting from his torn right deltoid straight to the core of his skull. Yet despite the wound, and despite being pushed onto the back foot by the endless swarm, Kanata showed not a trace of fear.

“B-But at this rate, can you actually win like that?!”

“Who knows?”

“‘Who knows?!’”

“Nobody knows how a fight’s gonna end until the final bell rings. Still, I have zero intention of losing before I even take my shot, and I’m not dumb enough to pick a fight without a path to victory. From here on out, it comes down to my luck.”

This is bad. At this rate, I’m gonna lose.

Gripping the jet-black Magic Cannon Sword in his left hand, Kanata was clad in a Protector that was frayed, torn, and shredded in half a dozen places, its defensive barrier long since depleted.

About time I wrap this up.

Having finished building up a full Charge inside his blade while playing defense, Kanata executed a sharp left-and-right Break turn to slice through the escort pack and close the distance to Chimera Antares’s hull. He had enough Magic Power left for exactly one shot. Not a drop more.

All the while he had been fending off the swarm one-handed with Gladius, he had been painstakingly stockpiling and refining his dwindling Magic Power for this single strike.

Alright—this ends it!

Extending his left arm and the tip of Gladius in a ramrod-straight line, Kanata leveled the cannon muzzle at the colossal flank of Chimera Antares.

Here goes. He squeezed the trigger built into the hilt.

A full-power magic cannon blast—the crystallization of every last drop of Magic Power he had left.

The roaring vortex of jet-black light surged forward to swallow the iron fortress whole—and was deflected clean off its hull.

Instead of coring through the monster’s shell, the concentrated black beam struck Chimera Antares’s outer carapace and scattered harmlessly into diffuse sparks of light as if hitting a mirror. Even degenerated, compressed, and focused into a high-density Strike Blaster, pure Magic Power couldn’t pierce a single millimeter into that magic-reflecting armor.

“It deflected Strike Blaster…?!”

Misora whispered in stunned disbelief—and the very next second, she noticed what was happening to Kanata in front of her.

“H-Hey! Are you okay?!”

Scrambling forward on the Broom, Misora caught Kanata as his knees buckled. Cold, clammy sweat drenched his brow, his breathing came in ragged, shallow gasps, and all strength had visibly drained from his limbs.

I knew it… What I saw during training wasn’t my imagination after all!

Heaving from the shoulders as his body refused to obey him, Kanata only managed to stay upright on the board because Misora wrapped her arms around his torso from the side to prop him up.

“I don’t know why or what happened to you, but your maximum Magic Capacity right now—it’s dangerously tiny, isn’t it?!”

Even as Misora cried out the truth he had hidden from everyone, the surrounding swarm of Achernar-class drones closed in from all sides to form a solid sphere around them.

Having weathered Kanata’s blast without a scratch, Chimera Antares had just issued the command to finish them off.

“…We’re completely surrounded!”

Misora cried out in despair. Checkmate. Yet leaning against her shoulder, Kanata spoke in a calm, level voice:

“Well, can’t be helped. Guess it’s about time I actually get serious.”

“What on earth are you talking about at a time like—”

Shiver. Out of nowhere, an icy chill ran straight up Misora’s spine, raising every hair on the back of her neck.

“? Eh…?”

The exact millisecond that unfathomable presence leaked into the air, the tightening ring of Achernar-class drones shuddered to a halt.

As if struck by sudden, primal terror, the mindless insects faltered in mid-flight, hesitating to dive in.

“W-Wait a second, what was that just now…? That wasn’t Magic Power, was it…?”

Misora’s wide eyes were glued to the boy standing right beside her—to Kanata, who had straightened back up atop the board as if nothing were wrong.

Visually, nothing about him had changed. He hadn’t sprouted an extra arm, nor had horns grown out of his forehead. To the naked eye, he looked no different from a second ago—except for the grim, razor-edged concentration etched across his face.

“Who knows? From here on out, though, what I’m about to do is a textbook example of how not to fight. It’s a terrible reference for a student, so don’t you ever try to copy it. …And no matter what happens next, don’t take a single step off this Broom.”

No physical transformation had taken place inside him. Looking down at his left hand gripping the hilt of his Magic Cannon Sword, Kanata reflected silently. All he had done was unseal the power he had kept locked away deep inside his body since that day six months ago—Curse Power.

Cloaking his own flesh in the power of humanity’s natural enemy.

All around them, the deafening pitch of the Achernar-class drones’ beating wings dropped an octave. Trembling as though they had laid eyes on an apex predator they were never meant to cross, the insects instinctively backed away to open distance.

While Misora stared in bewilderment at a sight that defied everything known about Armored Insects, right beside her, Kanata closed his eyes and sank his awareness inward.

Steadying his ragged breathing, he emptied his mind into a state of void.

Feeling the flow of all creation across his skin, he took hold of the two opposing currents dormant within his subconscious.

One was Magic Power. The other was Curse Power. The power of humanity, and the power of the inhuman.

Within his mind’s eye, he forced the two incompatible energies together into a single image.

Compressing them, kneading them, grinding them against one another, and forcing them to converge.

Deep within the core of Kanata’s body, a pitch-black groundswell began to churn. As the two opposing forces collided and fused, an entirely new current of power awakened in his veins.

What was born from that synthesis was the power to collapse the laws of all creation:

Collapse Power.

A forbidden synthesis of two diametrically opposed forces that were never meant to coexist—the rebellious, law-shattering power that Alchemists had theorized on paper yet never proven to exist.

It was the trump card—the Joker—that had taken root at the bottom of Kanata’s body during that mission six months ago, when he had shielded Chloe and come within a hair’s breadth of being absorbed alive into an Armored Insect’s core.

Kanata’s presence shifted. The exact instant Misora felt that change, without the slightest warning, a ferocious, unidentifiable gale erupted outward from Kanata’s body.

All Misora could register in that split second was the crushing wind pressure slamming against her face—and the sight of Kanata’s left forearm blurring into a dozen overlapping afterimages.

Thrown off balance by the shockwave, she had to cling desperately to the surface of the Broom with both hands just to keep from being blown into the sky, losing sight of what happened next. Yet when the mysterious gale subsided a heartbeat later and Misora finally lifted her head to look around, every single one of the dozens of Achernar-class drones that had surrounded them had vanished without a trace.

Had they been blown to pieces by that black gale, or had Kanata cut down every last one of them in the blink of an eye while hovering in place—or both?

Misora couldn’t even tell which explanation was true.

The only undeniable fact before her eyes was that the suffocating swarm of Achernar-class drones had been wiped out of existence in a single breath.

“Y-You…”

Her voice caught in her throat. She wanted to ask Kanata what on earth he had just done, yet the words refused to come out.

Even a relative novice like Misora could feel it on her skin. Kanata was now cloaked in an aura as cold and lethal as a naked razor blade—an otherworldly, terrifying sharpness that surpassed even the legends of his active days as Chronos, the Black Master Swordsman.

“It’s dangerous up ahead, so stay back here on the board. I’m gonna wrap this up right now.”

Leaving her on the hovering Broom with only those words, Kanata kicked off into open air, hurtling toward the giant monster under his own flight power.

What unfolded from that moment on belonged to a realm entirely beyond Misora’s comprehension.

Across the vast armored hull of Chimera Antares, dozens of glowing crimson eyes flared in unison, unleashing a converging barrage of more than twenty thick and thin laser beams straight at Kanata.

It was a curtain of light-speed death that no human being could ever hope to dodge after seeing the flash. Yet Kanata wove through the torrent of scorching beams by the thickness of a sheet of paper, dancing around the floating iron fortress as effortlessly as a leaf on the wind.

If that were me out there… I would’ve been shot down twenty times over in that opening volley alone.

Though they occupied the exact same patch of sky, Misora realized that she and Kanata were looking at two completely different worlds.

Skimming so close to the monster’s outer carapace that his boots practically grazed the shell, Kanata deliberately exposed himself to draw the creature’s fire.

Watching a lone boy charge a hundred-meter Chimera Antares head-on looked like watching a single foot soldier storm an impregnable mountain fortress armed with nothing but a sword.

Against a carapace that deflected a full-power Strike Blaster without a scratch, what can one guy possibly do with a blade…?

Yet along the trajectory where Kanata’s figure flashed past the monster’s hull, impossible sprays of dark green hemolymph erupted into the air.

“No way…! Did he just cut through its shell…?!”

Right before each spray of green fluid burst from the armor, Kanata’s left arm from the upper bicep down seemed to vanish into thin air.

Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Misora wondered in shock—before noticing an unmistakable change in Chimera Antares itself.

The density of the laser barrage firing from its crimson eyes had visibly thinned out, and even more astonishingly, the hundred-meter iron fortress had begun backing away in midair, trying to open distance from a single human boy. Refusing to let it escape, Kanata hounded its hull relentlessly.

One of the remaining crimson eyes on Chimera Antares’s flank flared to fire a beam. That exact instant, Kanata blurred right up to the eye; his left arm and Magic Cannon Sword vanished from sight for a microsecond, and the eye socket exploded in a fountain of green fluid before the beam could even launch.

“Don’t tell me… that’s his Limit Skill?!”

A Restricted Combat Technique placed under strict usage limits because of the destructive strain it inflicted on the wielder’s own body. Back when he was hailed as Chronos, the Black Master Swordsman, Kanata’s signature vanguard technique had been known as Flash Sword.

By reinforcing his arm with Magic Power to accelerate his swing to the absolute physical limit, he unleashed a close-quarters slash that defied human anatomy and vanished from human sight.

In an aerial dogfight, a vanguard capable of unleashing an invisible, unblockable slash at point-blank range was an absolute nightmare. The flip side, however, was the horrific toll it took on the muscles, tendons, and bones of the arm—even at his peak, Kanata had reportedly been limited to a maximum of four consecutive uses per battle…

Yet Kanata had already unleashed Flash Sword dozens of times in a row—and what unsettled Misora even more than the impossible count was the ominous, black aura cloaking his blade that had made even the Armored Insects recoil in fear. Nothing in any academy textbook matched the power she was witnessing.

Wait—come to think of it, she had once heard a passing rumor in class.

A theoretical power debated by Alchemists as an impossible pipe dream born from the collision of two opposing forces. If she remembered correctly, they called it Collapse Power.

Even as he wielded that godlike power, however, Kanata’s complexion was turning deathly ashen-white. Starved of oxygen, even his lips had turned a frightening shade of blue.

Yet Chimera Antares’s movements were slowing down even faster. Locked in a blistering battle of attrition beyond Misora’s ability to track, Kanata abruptly kicked off the hull and opened a wide gap between himself and the monster.

Did he hit his limit and decide to retreat?! Just as that fear crossed Misora’s mind, the jet-black blade of Kanata’s Magic Cannon Sword flared with an eerie, dark luminescence, and its five-chamber rotary cylinder spun with a sharp metallic clack-chak.

Hovering in the sky, Kanata leveled the tip of Gladius straight at Chimera Antares.

Too slow.

To Kanata’s hyper-accelerated perception, every laser beam lancing toward him appeared to crawl through the air in slow motion.

More than twenty searing thermal rays hurtling forward at the speed of light. Dodging a synchronized volley like that was a feat no human nervous system could ever pull off by reflex alone.

Yet Kanata slipped cleanly past every single beam without a hitch.

As easily as taking candy from a baby.

There was no arrogance or triumph in his heart as he did so; his dark eyes simply read the origin and vector of every shot before the enemy’s eyelids even finished opening.

Streaking right up to Chimera Antares’s hull at breakneck speed, he saw a cluster of crimson eyes peel open to catch him in a point-blank crossfire. The instant the lids parted, Kanata’s left arm vanished from the elbow down in a Flash Sword stroke, obliterating the eyes before they could fire.

Yeah… way too slow.

Skimming inches above the monster’s curved carapace as if licking the shell, Kanata unleashed Flash Sword after Flash Sword with his left arm, carving into the armor itself.

A diagonal slash tore across the hull to the lower left; a heartbeat later, dark green hemolymph geysered high into the sky from the rent.

By the time the fluid sprayed, Kanata was already gone, weaving across the hundred-meter hull in a continuous, high-speed figure-eight trajectory so the remaining eyes could never lock onto his vector.

With icy, almost mechanical precision, Kanata systematically dismantled the giant Chimera. Though each individual slash was tiny compared to the surface area of a hundred-meter fortress, he rained blows across the hull with relentless tenacity.

The reason his earlier Strike Blaster had bounced off was that this specimen’s carapace possessed an evolutionary adaptation that reflected pure Magic Power—likely developed over generations because its massive size made it an easy target for long-range magic artillery. Against physical Mithril steel infused with Collapse Power, however, its shell could still be cut.

Like taking a coarse steel rasp to a boulder, Kanata shaved and gouged away the monster’s protective carapace across its entire upper hemisphere.

Naturally, his breathing grew more ragged with every passing second, yet he couldn’t afford to pause for a single breath.

Wiping the sweat stinging his eyes in the fraction of a second between passes, he kept his gaze locked on the enemy and pressed the assault.

How many Sky Wizards in the entire world could stand alone before a leviathan of this scale and maintain such ice-cold composure?

Recognizing at last that this lone human was an existential threat, the floating iron fortress of Chimera Antares began backing away in earnest.

Had Kanata been the monster’s instructor, he would have commended it for making the smart tactical call.

In the very next breath, however, he would have flunked it for its fatal miscalculation—for having underestimated Kanata Age until it was far too late.

Still too slow.

Crushing crimson eyes and gouging away plates of magic-resistant carapace with each Flash Sword, Kanata felt something deep within his core awakening further with every heartbeat.

He didn’t know why, but the entire world around him seemed to be moving nearly at a standstill.

As he arced up toward the central apex at the crown of the monster’s upper bowl, eight large crimson eyes ringed around the summit snapped open simultaneously to vaporize him.

Before they could fire, Kanata crushed three of the eyes with a single Flash Sword, twisted his neck and spread his legs to execute a midair Roll that dodged the five remaining laser beams by a hair’s breadth—the grazing heat singeing the hem of his tattered Protector—and immediately unleashed a second Flash Sword that ruptured the other five eyes before their lids could blink shut.

The entire exchange took less than two seconds.

…Wait. Is the world slow, or am I just moving too fast?

Inside a world frozen nearly still, he alone was moving at blinding speed.

After six months away from the front lines, his battle instincts had been honed to a razor’s edge. The only sound reaching his ears now was the soft, sibilant murmur of the air parting past his cheeks—he could hear the whispering of the wind.

The exact instant his mind registered that sensation, Kanata’s lungs convulsed in a violent cough.

When he wiped his mouth with the back of his left sleeve, the fabric came away stained bright crimson. It wasn’t from any hit landed by the Armored Insects. His own physical body was tearing itself apart trying to keep up with his hyper-accelerated nerves and the recoil of Collapse Power.

Looks like it’s now or never.

Even reinforced to the limit with Physical Reinforcement Magecraft, his flesh and bones had reached their breaking point first.

Power too great for its vessel destroys the wielder from within. His body could no longer endure the strain of channeling a force that defied the laws of the world.

Along the length of Gladius, an eerie, pitch-black luminescence flared to life, shining with blinding intensity.

“You can’t reflect my magic cannon anymore.”

Murmuring quietly to himself, Kanata soared high into the air directly above the crown of Chimera Antares.

Down below, the hundred-meter colossus blotting out the clouds sensed its impending doom and mobilized every single surviving crimson eye across its upper hull to aim skyward at Kanata. Banking hard, Kanata spiraled wide to the lower right as a forest of red beams lanced past him.

One grazing beam sliced a shallow cut across his cheek, searing the skin shut with a sharp hiss. Paying the burn no mind, Kanata kicked into a vertical climb that brought him directly above the zenith of Chimera Antares, with the blazing sun squarely at his back.

“Sorry about this, pal…”

For a split second, blinded by the glare of the sun behind him, the monster’s laser barrage faltered. Seizing that fleeting opening from directly overhead, Kanata locked his sights straight down onto the monster’s crown.

“──────But I’ve got people I’m sworn to protect.”

Across the upper dome of Chimera Antares, more than sixty blood-red eyes snapped wide open at once, all of them locking onto the lone boy silhouetted against the sun.

After all the eyes I already crushed, this thing still had that many left in reserve, huh? Letting out a dry chuckle despite himself, Kanata stared down the barrel of his black Magic Cannon Sword at the leviathan below.

“Magic cannon blasts don’t work on that thing’s shell! Have you lost your mind from exhaustion?!”

Misora’s frantic voice crackled through the Communication Crystal at his ear. Unfazed, Kanata kept the muzzle of Gladius trained dead-center on the monster’s upper apex—the exact spot where he had shaved away its outer carapace and where its regeneration was slowest.

“H-Hurry up and get out of there! All of its eyes are locked onto you!”

Mobilizing every last crimson eye still functioning across its hull, Chimera Antares unleashed a converged mega-salvo of thermal beams larger than anything it had fired yet, surging upward like a rising crimson sun to incinerate Kanata.

Yet Kanata spoke in his usual breezy drawl:

“Hm? Didn’t I tell you?”

With a fearless grin curving across his bloodstained lips, Kanata squeezed the trigger of his Magic Cannon Sword.

“—The moment I go all-out, victory’s already decided!”

Magic Cannon Sword Combat Technique—Strike Blaster!

Infused with Collapse Power, a roaring torrent of pitch-black energy orders of magnitude more destructive than his first shot plunged straight down from the heavens.

As the black vortex collided head-on with Chimera Antares’s rising salvo of laser beams, it shattered and devoured every single ray of light in its path.

Get the hell out of here already. This sky belongs to us Sky Wizards.

Driven by the full weight of Kanata’s indomitable will, the black beam slammed into the scarred, unhealed apex of the monster’s crown and punched clean through the weakened carapace like tissue paper.

Every single Flash Sword slash Kanata had rained across the hull earlier had been calculated to locate and tenderize the thinnest point in its armor, stripping away its magic-reflecting outer layer for this one decisive shot.

Meeting zero resistance, the torrent of black destruction plunged deep into the leviathan’s vitals, tearing through organs, shattering internal cores, and annihilating everything inside its shell from top to bottom.

A single heartbeat of dead silence hung across the sky. And then, all at once, the hundred-meter iron fortress blotting out the heavens blew apart from the inside out in a cataclysmic midair explosion, spewing a colossal geyser of green fluid and shattered carapace across the clouds that swallowed Kanata’s figure from view.

The thunderous shockwave of the blast rippled across the atmosphere, buffeting Misora violently where she hovered in the distance. Barely managing to right the Broom against the gale, she frantically scanned the smoke-filled sky for Kanata.

Found him! Having burned through every last drop of his strength, Kanata was in freefall.

Unconscious and limp as a ragdoll, his body plummeted straight toward the earth. Every muscle, bone, and cell in his body was screaming in agony from the backlash of the forbidden power he had unleashed. Though he was the victor who had just slain a fortress single-handedly, Kanata was falling out of the sky with a face as pale and gaunt as a corpse. Wrestling desperately with the unfamiliar controls of the customized Broom, Misora dove after him at full throttle—

“Hey, hang in there! Are you okay?!”

Lunging forward off the nose of the board, Misora caught Kanata’s limp hand mid-fall.

“My bad, Misora…”

“‘My bad’ for what?!”

Cracking his heavy eyelids open a sliver, Kanata murmured weakly:

“Did you… get hurt anywhere?”

Looking at his deathly pale, blood-streaked face, it couldn’t have been more obvious which one of them was in critical condition.

“You’re the one who’s hurt all over, you big idiot!”

Hauling Kanata’s heavy body onto the surface of the Broom with everything she had, Misora leaned over him as he lay collapsed on the board and grabbed his collar.

“W-What on earth was that black power just now?! Why have you been hiding strength that incredible all this time…?!”

Instead of praising his impossible victory, her trembling voice came out sounding half-bewildered, half-accusing.

If he had possessed power on that level all along, why had he let everyone brand him a traitor and hidden in the shadows when he could have ended the battle before Mistgun suffered such heavy damage?

Yet no answer came. Kanata had already lost consciousness completely.