Blade Flyer (2)
A wind thick with salt scoured the flight deck. I crossed it toward Franc and Miho, and the little fox — seven lollipops crammed into her mouth at once, still working them over — spotted me and came pattering over at a run.
Both cheeks ballooned out, white sticks jutting every which way. Cute enough to put a glutton of a squirrel to shame.
In the fantasy novels, fox spirits are sex symbols. They throw themselves at the hero, body and all. Our Miho, though... well. Pitiful, in more ways than one. The chest situation not least among them.
"Mmph—Masteeerrr~!"
She barreled up with her words leaking out around the candy, face radiant, giggling the whole way, and held up a fistful of chocolate bars and sweets for me to see.
"Hmph-humansh gave me sho much candy an' choco-mph!"
"What? The humans gave you a pile of candy and chocolate?"
"Mmph-mmph! Mmmph!"
Miho mumbled around a mouth stuffed full, so thrilled her fox ears wouldn't stop flapping. I'd have to buy her plenty of snacks and candy and chocolate once we got home. I stroked her head and turned to Franc, standing at the edge of the flight deck.
"Franc. When you look underwater with sight analysis, how far can you see?"
"The true depths do not show themselves clearly to me. I can see down to three or four kilometers, but any farther and it grows hazy... How is it for you, Seoha?"
"Hm. Around Hawaii, Spatial Perception reaches the seafloor. Head somewhere deeper, though, and it blows straight past my range. Keeping the Blade Flyer from fleeing into the deep is going to matter just as much as catching it."
Hwayeon had been turning the problem over beside Franc, eyes on the sea. She glanced toward the control tower they called the Island and spoke.
"Let us take the Blade Flyer first. Choosing between the imugi and the Blade Flyer is a decision we can make after we have caught one."
"Yeah."
Just then a Korean operations officer came pounding up, out of breath, snapped to attention with a tense face, and shouted.
"Preparations for the operation are complete! Fleet Commander Robert Phillips requests that the Chairman of Grand Bleu come to the command center!"
"Got it. I'll head over now."
I took my lovers by the hand, and Miho with them, and Space Leaped to the command center. The people bent over the table of display panels flinched, then hurriedly made room.
Miho squeezed in between me and Hwayeon, and the older men — the sort who looked about ready to become grandfathers — couldn't pull their eyes off her white tails. It was a little funny.
Vice Admiral Robert Phillips cleared his throat softly, snapping the tail-gazers back to themselves, gestured to the operations officer standing behind him, and asked me:
"When do you intend to commence the operation?"
"You said preparations were finished, right? I want to start right now."
"I see. Then please accept this."
The operations officer brought over a box no bigger than my two palms and passed it to the vice admiral, who opened the lid and showed me what was inside. A device like a smartphone, with a screen the size of a palm, and an earplug-style earpiece.
He held up the smartphone-shaped one and went on.
"This GPS is linked to the tracking beacon attached to the Blade Flyer's body, and to the satellites. With this alone, you can track the Blade Flyer from anywhere on Earth. And this earplug is a satellite communications device. The same principle — it uses the satellites as a relay, so voice can be sent and received between you and this place."
"Huh? I've got a Certifier. Do I need an earplug?"
"Ha ha. In the urgency of combat, would it not be inconvenient to activate a Certifier merely to speak? That is why we prepared them... If you have no need of them, take only the tracker."
"I'll leave a Certifier call open with Hwayeon, so if you've got something to say, say it through her."
I took only the tracking device from Vice Admiral Robert Phillips. He nodded, face a little tense and set, and passed the box back to the operations officer behind him.
......This is getting on my nerves. Tensing up at every little thing I do, like some chicken-heart who has no business in uniform. And he made admiral with a spine like that.
Well. There's a Calamity-rank aberrant standing right next to him. That'd do it.
I was looking over how to switch the tracker on when the officer who had taken the earplug explained.
"To activate the tracking device, press the three buttons on the side simultaneously for three seconds. It is a safeguard, so the tracker cannot be shut off too easily should something go wrong."
I pressed the three small buttons at once, as instructed. The mark of the United States Department of Defense appeared on the screen and vanished, and a map of the North Pacific came up with three dots floating on it — red, blue, and green.
Wondering how to check my bearing, I moved the GPS, and a fan-shaped radar signal rotated with me. The operations officer looked at the live tracker and spoke again.
"The red dot is the Blade Flyer's position. The blue dot is the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. The green dot is the tracking device itself. As the red and green dots draw closer, the display magnifies; the farther they separate, the more it reduces. The margin of error between the red and green dots on the map is three meters."
I gave a small nod to the operations officer — hair pinned up, briefing clear and concise; a woman, as it turned out — and touched the screen. The distance between the red dot and the green one appeared.
The Blade Flyer was sitting halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii. Two thousand kilometers, by the numbers.
On my own two feet, that'd take over five hours.
"Damn, that's far."
"The fleet will get underway as well, starting now. Would you prefer to depart once we have closed to a certain distance on the Blade Flyer?"
"No. I'm riding Miho. Take a ship and the round trip alone would eat more than ten days."
"Ha ha... Then once you depart, Chairman, we shall depart as well. We will follow at a distance, so pay us no mind."
"Right. See you after I've caught the flying fish."
"Please be careful."
I told Hwayeon I'd be back — she was calm, though a thread of worry showed — then rapped Darky's head with a fingertip. He sloshed and billowed, and wrapped my body in armor, the same as last time.
"Hah—!"
"Ohh...!"
Startled cries rose from the people in the command center. I caught Franc and Miho about the waist and Space Leaped back to the flight deck.
Out of stale air into a place open on every side, my chest felt clearer — and a wind like a knife-edge slapped my face in trade. They'd said Hawaii's average winter afternoon ran twenty-five degrees Celsius. This felt below freezing. The overcast, maybe.
"All right, Miho — transform!"
"Transform!"
Miho, still in her black sweater and pleated skirt, kicked off her leather shoes and shifted into fox form. Her small frame swelled and reshaped, and every last stitch of clothing tore away. Amid a faint shimmer of light she became a snow-white seven-tailed fox. I stroked the bridge of her nose and placed a call through Hwayeon's Certifier. A hologram window rose, her pretty face caught at its center.
"Reception clear?"
"Clear."
She answered my teasing with a soundless little huff of a laugh, and I grinned back at her before climbing onto Miho's back. I handed Franc the Blade Flyer tracker and said:
"Franc, take point with the tracker. Goal is to catch him and get home before the day's out."
"Yes."
Franc shot away at a speed like a flash of light, and Miho tore after her, far beyond even my all-out sprint. A typhoon-roar sheared past my ears. I grabbed a fistful of the fur along Miho's back and shouted.
"Whoa. This has to be twice as fast as I run!"
"Ehehe. Can I fly even faster?"
"Fly as fast as you want!!"
"Eeehee~!"
With an adorable little battle cry, Miho poured on still more speed. A sound like bombs detonating roared in my ears until they went dead, and the air resistance hit hard enough that I spun Mana Mode up a notch and flattened myself against her back. Only when I buried myself in that plush fur did the wind pressure drop to something I could endure.
A sigh is about all I've got for this. Riding Miho without a Physical Reinforcement ability would be impossible.
Miho and Franc traded the lead, flying hard. Nothing but sea in every direction — no landmark to feel the speed against — so I had no idea how fast we actually were. I wanted to ask, but the wind was loud enough to deafen me. I couldn't even get the words out.
Then Franc drew up alongside, mouth opening and closing. She was saying something. I couldn't hear it, so I read her lips.
"Seoha. Are you all right?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. How fast are we flying right now?"
"...At this speed, I believe we will overtake the Blade Flyer within the hour."
Two thousand kilometers an hour? Ridiculous. I thought for a moment, then spoke.
"When we find the Blade Flyer, check its Phase Power first. If it's within range for mental manipulation, we hit that before anything else."
"And if it is not?"
"If it isn't, we just wreck it, like I told Hwayeon. Good chance to field-test the upgraded Mana Bullet while we're at it."
I answered while fiddling with the Cheonchongun Sword at my waist, and Franc nodded.
About fifty minutes after we'd left, I muted the Certifier and patted Miho's back to bring her to a brief stop. She'd been flying in high spirits; disappointed at the halt, she glanced back with the tip of her tongue poking out.
"Whyyy?"
"Got a few things to check."
Franc came in close and handed me the Blade Flyer tracker. I checked the distance between the thing and me. Roughly sixty kilometers left.
"Darky."
"Yessir?"
I called him, and he popped just a face out of my shoulder, mouth flapping open and shut.
Do that and he looks exactly like a two-headed human.
"How far out can you sense other things' Phase Power, max?"
"Fifteen thousand meters, on the dot."
"Fifteen kilometers. Miho?"
"Mmm? Mmm. I think I'm about the same."
"Huh? You know fur grows on your butt if you lie, right?"
Hearing that her detection range matched his, Darky stared at the back of Miho's head in pure disbelief.
"I'm not lying! For real!"
"For real? Honto ni? Really?"
"I said for real!"
"That even make sense? A High-Tier, talkin' like that? Got proof?"
"Master said I'm a high-tier subspecies! He said my power can go toe-to-toe with a Calamity-rank aberrant!"
"Ah. Boss says it, it's real."
I ignored the two of them bickering for a moment. A Calamity-rank aberrant's Phase Power sense only reached fifteen kilometers? The Rogue Imugi's was fifteen kilometers too?
Hard to believe he'd found us on a mere fifteen kilometers of that. The Rogue Imugi who had come looking for me and Franc that day, rain pouring like a waterfall, flickered through my mind — but I shoved it into a corner for now and raised the tracker again to see where the thing was sitting.
I pulled up its history the way the operations officer had shown me. It had stayed in one spot the entire time since we'd left. What was it doing there, not moving?
I handed the tracker back to Franc and looked up. Storm clouds packed the sky, no sunlight getting through. The smell of the sea filled my nose. I rubbed beneath it and turned over the Blade Flyer plan we'd drawn up with the family.
I was still working through it when—
"Dummy!"
"Fox who calls someone a dummy is the bigger dummy."
"Grr! You didn't even know I was a high-tier subspecies!"
"But I do know you're flat. Kehehe. Foxes are a sex symbol everybody agrees on, so what's your excuse? You even a fox?"
"I-I'm just not done growing yet, okay?!"
Darky needled on at Miho, who was protesting with a face on the verge of tears.
"Know what they call a chest like yours? Barren ground. Nothin' can grow there. Therefore, the chest can't grow either. Kyahaha."
"Ugh, you—!"
Losing the war of words, Miho lashed her tails in a fit of pure irritation, about ready to boil over. I snorted at their childish squabble, scratched the nape of her neck, patted Darky's head, and said:
"Both of you, knock it off. Darky, you don't get to poke at someone's complex for fun."
"Yessir."
"Eeeh. Masteeeer. Scold the one that looks like dirty dishwater."
"Boss said quit!"
"Hmph."
Is Miho going to have to evolve into a Calamity-rank subspecies before she can actually win an argument with Darky? Anyway, I turned to Franc — who had been watching the two of them tussle with a mother's smile — and to Miho, still sulking and grumbling.
"You both remember the plan we made at home, right?"
"Mm. I remember."
"Good. Once we're near the Blade Flyer, don't attack until I do. Wait. Watch for the attacks from the footage Lydia sent. Water cannons from the snout, and those transparent shots from the spines on its back — and there may be other tricks, so don't let your guard down. Ever."
"Okay."
"Franc, I don't need to tell you — you'll handle it. Just read the timing and assist. The Blade Flyer's water-attribute, so lightning ought to land well."
"Yes. Please leave it to me."
"Good. Then let's go fillet some sashimi."
I patted Miho's back for the signal, and she surged toward the Blade Flyer again with renewed power.
We flew to about twenty kilometers out. I dropped from her back and planted my feet on a Space Wall, confirmed the Certifier was still muted, and asked Franc:
"Can you see the Blade Flyer?"
"Yes, I can see it. A kilometer beneath the surface, eyes open... I believe it sleeps. Its Phase Power is 37.52 million, and it bears no Phase Stone."
"37.52 million... Mental manipulation on that thing would take 18.76 million Phase Power..."
Mine sat at 18.92 million right now. Doable — but leaving myself only a hundred and sixty thousand felt wrong. Call it insurance against failure. Putting mental manipulation on that thing had a strong whiff of charging in without a thought for what came after.
I was frowning a little when Franc, looking slightly tense herself, went on describing it.
"On the whole it is a flying fish the color of seawater, though its mouth is packed with teeth like awls. Four great wings grow from the pectoral fins on either side, with four lesser wings between them. The wings are folded against the body, and it floats in the water. Its full length, tail fin included, comes to roughly one hundred and twelve meters. Sixty-two protrusions run from the brow all the way to the tail."
It sounded less like she was telling me and more like she was explaining for Miho. Listening, I glanced at the hologram window. Hwayeon's face had gone stiff. She was tense too.
I swung the hologram around behind me so I could still see it from back there, set the Mermaid's Pearl in my mouth, and drew the Cheonchongun Sword from my waist. Then I focused Mana Sieve through my whole body.
A blue aura bloomed out from my torso, passing through Darky's translucent body and scattering a radiance like an aurora. Guess I ought to start calling this mana aura.
I pushed Phase Power into the Cheonchongun Sword, ready to fire a sword-energy Mana Bullet, and pinched three improved Mana Bullets between the fingers of my left hand. I nodded to Franc and Miho for the signal, then Space Leaped twice in succession and cut the distance to four kilometers.
In that instant Spatial Perception caught the thing shuddering its huge blue body and aiming its head exactly where I was. I didn't let the instant response rattle me. I hurled three improved Mana Bullets — and at the same moment it gaped a snout bristling with saw-teeth and fired a continuous water cannon ten meters across.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Through accelerated thought I picked out the cannons punching up through the surface and slipped them by a hair — but their shape had already changed. In the footage they'd been rough masses of water. Now they looked like round lumps of iron. It's gotten stronger already. Even the skill's different.
The Blade Flyer's cannons screamed past me on a tearing rush of air and vanished into the sky, while my improved Mana Bullets — faster than the water — hammered its body without mercy.
———!!
Every impact wrung a soundless scream out of it. The Blade Flyer thrashed as if the cry had nowhere to go. Where the rounds struck, three hollows had been gouged into its body, each three meters across. Its energy field hadn't been canceled — it was intact — and yet only the impact points were left with round wounds, as if a scoop had carved them clean out of the flesh.
Every time the hundred-meter thing convulsed beneath the surface, the heaving water burst upward like a geyser. Big body. Enormous wake.
Crimson blood spread through the sea from the wounds I'd opened. I fired a sword-energy Mana Bullet, and the thing wasn't entirely brainless — it spread the wings it had kept folded and dodged the crescent of blade-energy with a high-speed maneuver. It shot a water cannon at me while it did. I read the trajectory with Spatial Perception, slipped it, and fired improved Mana Bullets again. Two missed. One hit near the tail fin and bored a hole deep enough to show bone.
Kweeee—
"Hm."
A roar that might have been what ultrasound would sound like, if your ears could catch it, tore up through the sea. Belatedly deciding water cannons did nothing to me, it stopped firing them and instead split the water, rising fast toward the surface.
Shaaaa—!
In an instant it shoved the spines along its back above the water and began launching something thin and droplet-shaped from them in a wild barrage. They came whistling in like surface-to-air missiles, and I knew what they were.
Scales. It was firing translucent scales off those spines.
Each one was bigger than a grown person and sharper than my Cheonchongun Sword. Get a belly run through by something like that and of course it bursts. Dozens of them poured toward me. I slipped them by a hair — and to my surprise they curved in after me, as if they had guidance. So I Space Leaped in the opposite direction of their flight, and they wheeled a few times before sailing off somewhere useless.
Real tracking, like missiles. I was startled for a second, but I got my head together fast and fixed my eyes on the Blade Flyer, which had hesitated — apparently not expecting me to dodge the scales.
My turn now?
I went to swallow and nearly gulped down the Mermaid's Pearl, fixed it back under my tongue, and formed an improved Mana Bullet — Mana Bullet Mk2 — in my left hand. Then I Space Leaped behind the Blade Flyer, spines breaking the surface.
If it can dodge well enough from three kilometers out, I'll just shoot from closer.
The moment I appeared behind it and fired a Mana Bullet Mk2 at its tail, the thing suddenly thrashed its wing-fins and tail fin into a brutal acceleration, pulled off an outrageous maneuver, and dodged the Mk2 entirely.
No way. I fired from a kilometer out and it still dodged that?
The three that had landed the first time, and the one that had landed the second. Spraying blood from its wounds, it dove for the deep sea. A beat too late, I threw up a Space Wall where it was going under, trying to block it — but whatever shock that swimming generated, it pulverized a Space Wall stacked ten layers deep like it was nothing and reached the very edge of my Spatial Perception in an instant.
Damn it. Is the Mana Bullet Mk2 just too small to leave a real wound on something over a hundred meters? Doesn't even seem to be hindering its movement.
I was wondering if it was fleeing, debating whether to chase with a Space Leap, when it immediately U-turned, thrashed its tail fin like mad, and shot up toward the surface. I leapt out of the water after it. The enormous blue flying-fish monster, having jumped as high as a dolphin, beat its dragonfly-like pectoral wings up and down faster than the eye could follow and came crashing down on me.
"The hell — since when does a flying fish own the sky?!"
I kicked off a Space Wall, clearing its line, and swung the Cheonchongun Sword at a fin-wing, firing a Sword Energy Bullet Mk2. The thing didn't even bother to dodge, with a look that seemed to hold me in contempt. Was it actually trusting that blue light condensed so thickly over its scales and wings — that energy-field something? Watching it ignore me, as if it meant to bat the shot aside the way it had batted aside missiles, I felt a flicker of unease myself. Then, as if to mock that unease, the Sword Energy Bullet Mk2 touched the wing and passed through without the slightest resistance, shearing the entire right wing-fin clean off with a heavy thunk as it went.
Pshhhhh—!
Clear, transparent fluid geysered from the cut face of the severed wing. The thing screamed like air hissing out of a puncture, twisted its whole body, and tried to plunge back into the water. But it had climbed a full kilometer above the surface, and up here Franc and Miho were waiting in the sky, TP charged, with nothing left to do but fire.
"Checkmate, you bastard!"
The instant I shouted, Miho and Franc hurled a lightning orb and a wind orb at the Blade Flyer.