The Restraint Suit
It had gone more smoothly than expected.
Well — given how often I'd been showing my face at the Association lately, that was only natural.
I arrived at the Association office with a light step. The staff — if you could call them that — flinched the moment they saw me, then fixed their eyes on the monitors in front of them with a determination that was almost entertaining to watch. They were trying very hard to pretend I wasn't there.
"What are you working on?"
"Hiek!"
Just a little test. I'd stepped up beside the one whose eyes had met mine a second earlier, spoken to him, and waited to see what happened.
Whether he'd jumped at my voice or at the sight of me — well, it didn't really matter either way.
From the glances flickering toward me across the office, I could roughly guess what kind of directive had gone out. Something along the lines of: She's been strangely cooperative for the past week. She's been acting friendly toward the rankers and hunters. So ignore her as much as possible.
That suited me fine. It meant I could get closer to Erika.
"Wow, what's this? It looks incredibly difficul—"
"Please stop harassing our staff and come this way."
I turned toward the voice that had brushed my ear, answering as I did.
"Hi."
"…"
"Are you jealous, by any chance?"
"Close that mouth of yours."
The atmosphere was ice-cold, but I liked it just fine this way.
Her uniform was brighter than what she usually wore. A clean, crisp white — neither skin-tight nor baggy, cut for fieldwork. And with it, that golden bob and those pale, lovely eyes.
Really, an excellent combination.
I spent a quiet moment taking her in from head to toe, and I could feel her gaze sharpening in real time.
Still — I'd just stared a woman down like that. The least I could do was offer a review.
"You're pretty."
I smiled softly. What came back was a sigh.
Along with it, Erika held something out to me: the restraint suit I'd seen yesterday. A deep gray, cut a little larger than my frame. Put it on and I'd waddle around like a penguin in an overcoat. The restraint belts visible here and there looked like they'd dig in.
"You agreed to wear it."
She was bold about it. Maybe that was her stance for the day.
"You seriously want me to put this on?"
"Yes."
The suit swayed in her hands. It looked heavy.
"I don't know how to wear something like this."
"I'll put it on you."
"Dressing me in a restraint suit… is that your kind of thing?"
No answer came. I stepped quietly in front of her, and our eyes met.
"Mmph—"
As if she had no intention of granting me even that much time, a stiff, dense fabric dropped over my head and began to swallow my body. My vision went dark for a moment.
Push. Shove.
"Pwah."
I'd nearly suffocated.
"You messed up my hair."
I lifted an arm to smooth it back into place, but the suit itself was so heavy that even that took effort.
And what I saw when I looked up were eyes. Plenty of them. Erika's expression hadn't changed, but most of the staff were staring with a mixture of shock and faint unease.
All a restrained me could do for them was what I always did — smile, and open my mouth.
"Don't worry, everyone. Today's version of me is perfectly safe. I won't go running wild or anything."
If I were going to, I wouldn't have put the suit on in the first place.
I took a step forward as I said it. Moving wasn't impossible, just uncomfortable. My arms barely wanted to bend.
The silver lining was that only the upper body was bound — my legs were fine.
"Shall we go?"
"Hold on."
I wasn't about to let an opportunity like this slip away.
"It's too heavy."
Our eyes met for a beat. Erika looked at me, unmoved.
"And?"
"Will you hold my hand? I can barely move. I'd like someone to pull me along."
I really, truly had a little hope — and it didn't land even slightly.
I hadn't expected her to just leave me there and walk out of the office first.
[ Hurry up and follow her. ]
"I was going to anyway."
All I could do was trail after her.
A vehicle was waiting.
A large black van, the expensive kind.
Leaning back into the seat made the restraint suit bunch and crease in a way I hated, but the seat itself was comfortable — comfortable enough that I almost wanted to close my eyes right there.
"It wasn't an easy place to track. They seem to know they're being targeted — they move their hideout on a regular schedule."
"You must have had a hard time."
"It's thanks to you, Ms. Erika. The latest models should have been rolled out much sooner."
The woman in the black suit said it, then caught my eye — and looked away in a hurry.
"Good work…?"
"Ah — yes…"
Even that reluctant answer felt somehow pitiful.
She was the agent who'd wait on standby and come pick us up once the operation was over, if I remembered right. She was genuinely in for a long day.
The van lurched hard once, then stopped, and the side door slid open.
"Are we there?"
"Let's get out."
Outside, the sun was pouring down. Early afternoon. What I could see was the van parked on a shoulder of the outer road, and the two of us climbing down from it.
And in the distance, a conspicuous abandoned building.
I gave the agent a small nod of goodbye and started waddling after Erika as she turned and walked away.
Craneing my neck past the device in her hand, I caught a screen that looked like a finely subdivided map. A few blinking signals and the red markers scattered between them drew the eye.
So that was what we were navigating by. Those rare detectors must have been deployed in numbers.
Neither of us said much. The surroundings were quiet, and I walked in silence, watching Erika's back as she followed the shaded shoulder of the road. The deliberately slow pace almost felt like consideration for me.
"Do you have a plan?"
"Immediate elimination. The moment I see them."
A hard push, then. Not a bad approach.
"I'm worried it'll end too boringly."
"Is that so."
A soulless answer. She didn't seem particularly worried at all.
I, on the other hand, was carrying a small spark of anticipation. I'd been a swordsman — back then I'd only ever cared about my own weapon and stats — but ever since facing Erika, I'd started to wonder, little by little, how that sword of hers would come at me.
So the fight about to unfold in front of me was impossible to ignore.
In short, against a collective of Awakened pushing in with sheer numbers and high-tier stats across the board—
"Something like a wide-area build borrowing saturation stats."
"…What?"
One long sword-stroke cutting through empty air, and every enemy carved apart.
Or—
"Individual combat using close-quarters technique."
"…"
Of course, in that case Erika would be alone. Which meant she'd have to evade and defend against every attack concentrated on her, then drive her blade home in the clinch.
I was intensely curious which she'd choose.
"Which do you prefer?"
Without slowing her pace, she glanced back at me trailing behind her, and frowned.
"I'd rather not expose my weaknesses if I don't have to."
And she was right — break it down far enough and it led straight to strengths and weaknesses.
Simply put: if her internal mana was sufficient, the former. If agility and strength held the edge instead, the latter.
"I already know both your weaknesses and your strengths, though."
"…"
"If we keep spending time together like this, I might end up knowing everything about you."
"…We're almost there."
I kept smiling and kept talking, but Erika turned her head and seemed to have decided not to show me her face.
From a distance I hadn't been able to tell, but up close it was a bright building.
Easily three stories — less an abandoned ruin than an old, disused church. Plenty of windows, most of them broken, which only meant more light poured into the interior. Walking in shouldn't have felt like anything to hesitate over.
Of course, we didn't get that luxury.
"Three detectors. Two Awakened."
Hidden in the miniature jungle the massive trees had made, what we saw was this: three drone-type devices patrolling the air, and two hunters pacing the entrance with guns in hand.
Erika rummaged inside her jacket, pulled out a small spherical device, and clenched it tight in her fist.
"Follow me. Stay close."
The device arced into the air and went off with a bang — a wave of interference scattered through the atmosphere, and the drones hovering overhead cut out and dropped.
In that same instant Erika launched herself forward, appearing behind one of the hunters in a blink—
"Heuugh!"
—and the man, heart pierced twice through by her blade, let out a death rattle and collapsed. The one beside him shouted and swung his muzzle wildly toward the woman he couldn't see.
"Wh-what the hell—!"
Watching him, I stepped lightly — restraint suit and all — out into the sunlight. It took only a few seconds for the panic to flood his face.
"Hello."
A pitiful man, really. Assigned a role like this, in a place like this — he wouldn't even get the chance to speak.
I hoped he'd get a few words in while he still could.
"S-son of a bitch!! That bastard—!"
Thuk.
A length of steel punched through his body, drank its fill of red, and slid free into the air again.
He crumpled bonelessly to the ground under Erika's boot as she pinned his head and twisted her sword free.
"Harsh."
"As if you're one to talk…"
Erika shot me a look, turned her back, and adjusted her grip on the blade.
I exhaled and waddled after her.
The restraint suit was stifling.