Prologue -

  爆弾娘

  ~Pok'tan Agashi~

  -Bakudan Musume-

  Despite being closer to the sun than he would ever be back home, Naito Otaka shivered as he worked. Despite being dressed for the winter in the middle of summer, cold winds brushed past him as he took a few deep breaths from within his oxygen mask while he finished inspecting the propellers outside a docked airship. Altitude sickness was a bitch that he did not want to deal with ever again.

  He yawned as he took another deep breath. The ship was just about finished with its month-long repair and was finally sky-ready. Naito had spent the last few days with very little rest; the repair crew would collectively sacrifice sleep to meet the deadlines and there would be no exceptions.

  The ship was docked on the lee side of the sky isles, to protect the workers blown away by the wind.The larger classes of airships were too precious to be maintained on land. The gravity defying properties of a single flight core was worth more than the labyrinth of steel it was housed in. So, all repairs and constructions were done midair if possible, away from the general population.

  Even though espers like him enjoyed advantages in every industry, with the current wartime economy there was little work to be found even for a 3rd dan chounoryokusha like him.

  Even though his skills were on par with a 6th or even a 7th, oh well… dojo traditions.

  Regardless of the pay, he was expected to carry at least 2 guns on him at all times to fight off any man-eating birds looking for a snack during their migrations.

  The airship he was working on was nestled among aloft archipelagos above the eastern lands of Kairyu, surrounded by a sea of clouds, chilling winds, and the chaotic rhythm of construction tools, far away from the mountain range below. This battleship was a bit too large for a civilian dock, but repairs were urgent so nearly half of it was left jutting out into the horizon, with the catwalks hastily assembled.

  Naito, finished with his shift, took a few extra minutes with his personal sketchbook before sliding his safety harness along the rails of the catwalk back towards the isles. He slowly made his way back to the changing room to finish for the da-

  whhHHHRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRWHHHHHhh!

  Construction halted as air raid sirens blasted from every direction and the repair crew began their evacuation. Above the horizon, the young man noticed a strange light heading towards them from the direction of the sun. It was too small to be a rocket or aircraft, yet it flew with the same intent. Naito soon realized that it had been using the sun as a cover to avoid detection, and the unknown aerial phenomenon had already found its mark - his ship. It attached itself to the side of the civilian ship, and began to somehow burrow itself in.

  Through his extrasensory abilities, Naito heard the desperate screams and shouting of the military’s Apexers and espers, assigned to guard the ships with their lives as gunshots echoed across the sky.

  Otaka! Where are you?! A voice belonging to his manager yelled in his head.

  Kantoku’san, I’m near the starboard main propeller, what’s going on?

  It’s the kishin, it's come for our flight core and our Apexers can’t fight it off! If you can get to the engine room then protect the flight core and buy us some time! The kishin can not have it for itself before we finish the evacuation!

  Understood.

  Naito uncoupled his safety harness so he could dash as fast as his thick clothes could carry him. He took off a glove and with a single touch on the handwheel it spun around rapidly. A hatch opened to greet him with a blast of warm air that fogged up his mask. After wiping the moisture clean, he entered the tight and narrow maze-like corridors filled with pipes, gauges, and plenty of wheels and valves.

  With each step through the dim steel-reinforced halls, he could hear gunfire and explosions as the walls of the ship rumbled along his path. Then finally he found the door to the engine room, but it was slammed open and a third of it was missing. Naito, out of curiosity, touched the chunk that was missing with his bare hand. The markings were unnatural, like a large chunk of the metal just evaporated without a trace. Naito kept his oxygen mask on because of how quickly the airship was losing its air.

  The young man caught his breath and took off his other glove before unholstering his Gouka revolver. With his body heat elevated, his powers were fully charged. He loaded each abnormally large bullet slowly as he warmed up the bullets with his bare hands.

  The engine room had the 2nd largest interior space after the control room so that the engine had room to breathe. What was supposed to be a dimly lit room looked like it was burning from within, since a young woman stood in front of the orbital engine, dressed in a sleeveless coal black coat under a blood red short cloak, and her whole body burned in violent ethereal flames. As an esper, Naito was able to see the girl's thermal plume, also called anima.

  The spectral fire from all the way from her feet to her crown, where a single braid of dark red weaving into a fiery tip that hung below her shoulders, and from her shoulders sprouted metal wings. Each joint was constructed by an armament, made from a gun or a blade, sometimes both.

  The girl put her sword back into her silvery blade wing and began to focus her right palm towards the orbital engine.

  In fact, Naito realized that all the metal surrounding the girl was disintegrating into glitter and dust that swirled into her flames as if she was consuming it with her soul. The metal casing began to slide free.

  O’kami! The ship is MELTING! Naito panicked.

  He had spent the past few weeks working on this ship, with today being an especially long day, but now the kishin has come in to claim it.

  Naito thought that he could already hear a crack somewhere.

  “Oi! What do you think you’re doing?!” He shouted to stop the woman from doing any more damage to the most critical part of the airship, only to realize the same could have been asked about him.

  Of course she knows what she’s doing; she’s got wings! She’ll be fine if she sinks the ship! Why did I even ask?

  But not even an esper is immune to sleep, or the lack of.

  The girl turned around to reveal a visage obscured by a knight’s visor like a mask with no face, and it was smeared with blood that wasn’t hers.

  Naito panicked and sent out a mind field. Since he had her anima locked, he thought he could control her movement. But, he couldn’t get a good look at her eyes, weakening the signal.

  The young woman, sensing her mental privacy being intruded, glared at him with eyes that he couldn’t see, but felt. She then plucked a sword from her blade wing to throw at the mechanic.

  Luckily his thermals were still attached to several parts of the ship as he made his way inside, and the engine room door magically slammed itself shut as Naito quickly flicked his body sideways to duck behind the cover, returning a shot while his body dropped to the floor. After using his offhand to break his fall, the same hand began channeling his telekinetic abilities to bend the surrounding parts of the ship into his own personal shell.

  The sword was embedded onto his shell and started to glow intensely until it somehow exploded, and Naito instantly regretted revealing himself, having to weave the nearby pipes and panels together like threaded lamellar armor to protect himself against the shrapnel

  And there goes the ventilation, cooling, and hydraulics…. Naito cursed as he saw each pipe leak their respective gas or fluid. The pine-like smell of dragonblood was also leaking from somewhere as well, but there was no point trying to save this ship anymore as long as this angel of death was on board. He took off a large chunk of the ship to use as a telepathically assisted tower shield.

  The dark haired angel regenerated the missing portion of her wing and leaped into the air as jet flames blasted from its metal joints like miniaturized afterburners. The small, controlled explosions propelled her with the precision to navigate within the interior of the engine room, directly towards the mechanic.

  He fired another shot but the girl deflected the bullet. The projectile spun around to strike again, but she refused to be caught off guard like the first shot. She spun herself midair to deflect the bullet once more to drive it into the coolant tank, its thermals now deactivated.

  Wait what? Why are my bullets-

  Then Naito felt a shock in his nervous system as he found himself caught a null-field pulse, a last resort esper technique. His shield suddenly returned to its original weight and collapsed on him as half of his abilities had been shut down subconsciously for his own protection.

  It usually took him 4 minutes to reboot back to full capacity, until then all of his external abilities were nullified.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The girl’s mask fell and her blade wings detached from her metallic spine to scatter into individual weapons. Thankfully, the girl’s own esper abilities were rebooting thanks to her own null-field. Yet, she retained her apexer-like speed and dexterity like a high level hybrid. After landing with a slide, she quickly swapped her sword for a gunned blade that had fallen off her wing.

  Naito, already thinking ahead, already readied his backup gun, a short barrelled shotgun. No matter how fast she was, no Apexer can successfully deflect the spread of a dozen pellets at once.

  “Don’t you dare try to move.” She warned him as she pointed her revolvered rapier at his chest from a meter away. She saw that he wore a parachute and hesitated to pull the trigger.

  Although their telepathy and telekinesis were blocked for the next few minutes, they still had their internal superhuman reactions guaranteeing themselves a return shot, ensuring that whoever fired next would certainly die alongside their victim.

  The standoff lasted until Naito noticed from behind his sights that the girl was bleeding.

  But how? His bullets were supposed to curve, not home in. How do I have her thermal signature completely memorized? If the bullets were able to track her down, then that would mean…

  Naito dreaded the implications as he was finally able to get a good look at the woman face to face and saw…

  Hikari Seika? No, it can't be….

  The girl couldn’t have been his Kairyujin friend from his elementary years, he couldn’t believe it. It had been exactly 8 years, 8 months, and 19 days since they last met, but he remembered the girl’s teal blue eyes and dark red hair was exactly like the last day that they met. It was rare for an esper to forget, unless they somehow deleted the memory themselves.

  Naito had put all his memories thus far into “doors”, “shelves” and “books”. His mental memory files kept shuffling to verify the girl’s identity.

  Seika’chan, he remembered, or as she always liked to be called:

  Seong’hwa.

  Naito was 98.93% sure it was her because animas never lie, but still didn’t want to believe it.

  “Seong’hwa’ya?” He called out to her in Kairyugo. “Neo Seong’hwa matzi?

  “... Who are you?” Demanded the fiery angel. Who told you my name?”

  It’s really her.

  “It’s me, Otaka Naito, don’t you remember? We were classmates for 5 years in Tokai Elementary!” pleaded the airship mechanic as he slowly pointed his shotgun away from her and slowly emptied his weapon before setting it aside. Then, he took off his oxygen mask and goggles to reveal his face while keeping both his hands visible.

  Tokai Elementary was a place she hadn’t heard or spoken about in many years, and the young man did look familiar, but his face, along with his raven black hair and red eyes, blurred with the many imperial soldiers whom she fought and killed, so she kept her sword pointed at his chest.

  But then again, his bullets didn’t just curve. she thought. There was no way for his bullets to have tracked me so precisely…

  Unless we’ve physically interacted once before.

  If he was really Naito then that would mean he was a prodigy among espers. Childhood friend or not, many things change in 7 years, especially people. Could she risk allowing such a powerful Suzaku esper to live as a witness?

  But then again, could she kill someone like him, after all he’s done for her?

  “What are you doing back in Hae’ryeong?” She asked.

  “I started subcontracting work for the Ten-star Winged Engineering Company after graduating high school; and recently the laws allowed civilian espers outside the mainland again, so I was sent here to work on a few ships, both civilian and military. Haven’t even been able to set foot on Hae’ryeong soil since I’ve arrived. Just stuck up here in the skies fixing ships.”

  “What about your parents?” she asked.

  “Alive and well in Nanho’shi.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “Kaito’ni? He’s…” Naito paused.

  If Seong’hwa is the kishin, then what is he going to tell her?

  That Kaito went to enlist in the navy before the draft after the Pantheon Games were cancelled?

  “Never mind him, you’re bleeding!”, Naito warned.

  She was hit near the side of her stomach, where her inner ringmail was shredded by a full metal jacketed plastic-glass composite munition.

  Her dark clothes and the smell of gunpowder had been masking its severity. Blood was soaked deep into her clothes and dripped to the floor. Rather than form droplets or puddles, her blood began to burn away and disappear into the ether.

  What the-, Naito thought to himself.

  The null field had slowly faded over time. With her powers returning, Seong’hwa conjured a metal stake with her off hand. She concentrated her focus to the blunt side of the metal and it quickly began to glow red. She stabbed her wound with the sharp side to pick out the bullet and then immediately cauterized the wound with the heated blunt area. She clenched her teeth the entire way and growled at the pain. Her other hand kept her gun pointed at him the entire time.

  With a single flick, a translucent bullet burned with her blood as it rolled on the floor.

  “So… where is Kaito?” she asked again.

  “Kaito is…” Naito still didn’t have the heart to tell her. “… he had no choice but to volunteer for the navy. I haven’t seen him since his last leave. ”

  And he supposedly died in the Battle of Halfpoint.

  Seong’hwa regretted the news. Kaito, then a 21 year old athlete who sometimes picked them up at school in his automobile, was now a part of the machine that hunts her.

  If what this man is saying is true, then there was a chance that they would meet again.

  “What about you? Many zaibatsus have military ties as well. I doubt they would bring you here just for maintenance.”

  “Well, someone has been stealing our company’s flight cores. Of course they would want an esper network keeping watch over their ships, even better if they hire a gunner at discount wages… things have only gotten rougher for us espers ever since they invented the radio.”

  “If you’re really just a civilian, why do you have a gun?”

  “Because I'm an esper, I’m allowed to carry one while up here in the skylands because of the increasing avian attacks.”

  Seong’hwa wasn’t up to speed with the constantly changing imperial laws to know if this was all true.

  “And like I said: with rumours of a kishin that eats metal, I was given special rounds just in case you showed up. I’m sorry, I know it’s been years, but trust me, I’m just a mechanic here to fix ships and fight off the occasional monster! I even got a parachute to prove it.”

  Naito showed her his parachute, confirming his civilian status; imperial soldiers were too proud to wear them as safety measures.

  “Sorry, Netu’ya, but I can’t fully trust you, not yet.” She said with her gun still pointed.

  “Why? What happened?” he asked.

  “Too much to explain, but if you want me to trust you, then you’ll have to trust me first, and I need you to make sure every civilian is off the ship, because I’m taking the core right now.”

  O’kami… She's really going to do it!

  “I…But my….Nevermind.”

  After all that work…

  Naito tapped into his telepathic network.

  Kantoku’san, this is Naito! I was too late, the core was already gone, this ship is going to fall. Is everyone back in the skyland?

  …Kuso! Shikata’nai Otaka’san, everyone is back, so get out of there NOW!

  Naito made sure that his signal was tuned loud enough for Seong’hwa to listen in on as well.

  “You heard the boss, we’re the only civilians left. Now hurry up so I don’t become a liar.”

  Seong’hwa dispelled her weapon into dust and turned around and tore out the flight core’s casing from the engine, and the entire ship began to rumble as the crystal’s power no longer held the aircraft hovering above its repair dock. The cylindrical casing disintegrated from the palm of her hands, leaving behind only the brightly shining crystal core that fractured the surrounding light, like a million anima compressed into one.

  His old friend continued to absorb the surrounding metal, the places where her hand reached slowly disintegrated into tiny fragments of light. Soon the entire engine room was turning into diamond dust that flowed towards the girl, reforming her weaponized wings. Yet, her body seemed to grow ever weaker. Knowing the bullet, the wound was potentially fatal, despite the cauterization.

  Even worse was that the skyland’s remaining Apexers were headed their way. They both could sense that they were minutes from arrival.

  Seong’hwa then absorbed the core itself. The bright tetrahedron flickered out of existence as it was pressed into her chest. The core was secure, but its absorption didn’t heal her.

  The ship began to collapse under its own weight, splitting itself exactly from its center where Seong’hwa consumed most of the metal. An entire half of the ship sank while the other side was thankfully still docked in place. As the sunset bled into the torn interior, Naito witnessed half of his month-long project fall into the seas below, glimmering in the sunlight before slowly fading into the clouds.

  “Now hold still” Seong’hwa said as the young woman put her hands on the young man’s cheeks and brought her forehead to his. The young mechanic, slightly taken aback, quickly realized what she was doing.

  A memory transfer.

  Naito opened up his mind to her to accept it, allowing her to take his if she wished. Maybe then she will discover why he didn’t tell her the whole truth about his older brother.

  “Once this is all over, you’ll know where to find me.” She told him with a tearful smile. Shinji’te kure’te arigatou.

  Then she pushed him overboard to send him into the clouds below.

  The last thing Naito saw of her was her summoning a blade, burning with the same light like the one earlier that had-

  A large explosion ignited the ship’s dragonblood and consumed the rest of the ship, killing all who entered, and sparing those who’ve fled.

  Naito fell with the debris as countless visions rushed into him.

  Just what happened to her all these years?

  ???/?

  不可殺/人

  PULGASAR/IN