Kabukicho Melee - 3
"Hoeeet?! Kohane?! Nana-chan is coming to save yooou!!"
VRROOOM!
VRROOOM!
BWAAAAAAAH――
A frail voice utterly mismatched with the rough growl of the exhaust. From far away, a throttle twisted to its limit roared to life with a tremendous engine cry.
The girl of the fluorescent scarlet bike, which had been tearing wildly back and forth through the streets of Kabukicho. Nanami, starlight streaming behind her, was charging in a dead-straight line to save her friend trapped inside that black dome of a barrier.
W-what even IS that?!
It looked like a giant penning a cockroach inside its own food bowl. Just as Nanami froze in horror at the sheer scale of the thing—
Shuuuuung――
A yellow flash approaching from far off. The flash that had come hurtling toward Nanami at tremendous speed turned, as if it had been waiting all along, and began running alongside her.
The girl sprinted so hard that threatening gusts whipped off her slicing arms and legs. Side-tail trailing like the tail of a meteor shower, she chased the bike down.
"Hey! You! Vroom-vroom! Bad lady! Slow down right now!"
"You're chasing a bike on foooot?!"
A girl running level with the bike. Nanami gasped in disbelief all over again at the surreal sight.
Wrapped in yellow light, Hana dodged every obstacle that appeared in her path by running up along the building walls. Which was why she lost not a scrap of speed against a bike hurtling through the air at low altitude.
Skrk. Skrk.
In the middle of her ferocious chase, Hana stretched out her fingers — and slowly, the yellow light began to wrap around the bike's rear wheel.
Skrk. Skrk.
With a stiff metallic grind, the bike's speed began to bleed away. The moment Nanami felt the deceleration, she panicked and changed course, wrenching the throttle to its limit and firing the scarlet bike forward.
VRROOOM―
Fleeing the yellow flash in a wild roar of exhaust, Nanami pulled a tear-streaked face and lamented — that she was being held up by some pipsqueak of a child, how pathetic could she get; that her speed, matched stride for stride by mere running, was so maddening.
"What even IS this kid?!"
"Eeek! 'Kid'?! I am a perfectly proper magical girl!"
"Kohane-chan! Hurry up and come help meee! This little brat is sooo stubborn!"
"That's so mean! Say bad words and you get a red sticker!"
Shuuuuuung――
BWAAAAAAAH――
One girl scattering starlight through the air on her bike, leaving a trail of fluorescent scarlet. One girl leaping between ground and wall, drawing out a long tail of yellow flash.
The two girls raced side by side, weaving madly past countless pedestrians, signboards, and buildings, back and forth across the district — so frantic that the scenery smeared and blurred like paint spread wide across a landscape canvas.
At the end of the sprint, the one pulling ahead was the bike. A machine that could run through the air could always take freer paths.
Nanami began throwing the handlebars this way and that, using pedestrian bridges and low rooftops as obstacles to shake off the yellow flash of a girl.
The gap between the two girls slowly widened.
Sato Hana withdrew the psychokinesis that had hovered, agonizingly, just short of her target.
Uuuu... flying is cheating!
Hana looked up at the fluorescent scarlet bike and pulled a tearful face.
And I talked such a big game in front of Hikari-chan, too!
From the moment she had bloomed, following the whisper of her yellow star, Hana had carried a fierce confidence in "running fast" — and she refused, absolutely, to embarrass herself in front of her friend Hikari.
[Hana!]
"Huh? Hikari-chan?"
Her friend's voice, sudden and clear. Looking up, Hana saw Hikari's projection, masked, watching her from the rooftop of a tall building far away.
[I'll guide the route with illusions, so stay right on my path and force her to slow down!]
"Hikari-chan! Can't you just grab the robot — wham! Like that?"
[I've tried a few times, but she slips away before it even activates. Slowing her down comes first.]
"Like a fly? Squash! Just like that?"
[...The point isn't to simply destroy her. She has to pay the price.]
"Okay! Got it! Like at school — she has to get punished, right?"
Gathering strength at the tips of both feet. Pressing her arms lightly against her body. Dropping her frame low. Shifting every ounce of her center of gravity forward.
A full-power sprint.
A posture so extreme that turning even once felt like it would cost her balance. A posture so precarious that stopping even once felt like it would send her pitching headlong forward.
Like an arrow made only to be loosed ahead. Like a meteor flying with eyes for nothing but the sky in front of it.
Shuuuuung――
The roar of parted air sliced threateningly past her ears. And within that sound, it felt as though the yellow star were whispering — it's all right, you can run even faster.
"Bad ladies who trouble other people get a spank-spank on the butt!!"
The yellow meteor shot out with a sharp whistle of split wind. The scarlet bike, sensing it, grabbed the brakes and wrenched the handlebars to turn — then, seeing the state of the road directly ahead, had no choice but to stop.
"Hoeeet?! What NOW?!"
"Whoa! So this is it! So cool!"
Grrrrmbll.
Buildings, on the move. The cityscape of rising structures stirred like a single living creature. They sealed off side streets and alleys like walls, swallowing everything except the one road the two girls ran on.
One straight line. The horizon. A single road.
Before Nanami's eyes — which until moments ago had been threading dizzily through a maze of alleys — there was now nothing but a straight road stretching clean past the horizon.
"Hiiiek!?"
To Nanami, unaccustomed to illusions, the sight was nothing but a vast nightmare tailor-made to induce panic. Her vision narrowed by panic, Nanami simply shot forward.
A pure, honest contest of speed.
Hana finally smiled at a competition that was, at long last, equal.
"AHAHA! If it's just running, I don't lose!"
Moving arms, dazzling. Running feet, swift. From two legs accelerating without end, explosively, afterimages poured off in sheets — and Sato Hana became a meteor in perfect form.
The yellow meteor ran forward to stop the bike. Nanami's shoulder and Hana's shoulder finally began to overlap, side by side. The distance closed.
"Now — now I can reach her!"
Hana tried to stretch her psychokinesis toward the rear wheel, closing the gap that had hovered just out of reach for so long.
"Just a little!! Just a little more!!"
"No!! Don't stop the bike!!!"
Nanami shrieked and hauled back on the throttle with all her strength. The bike's front end lifted — and at the same moment, deploying the fluorescent scarlet starlight as a foothold, she built a road with her own hands.
Stepping across curved platforms born over empty terrain, the bike wheeled 180 degrees like a roller coaster and ran backward. In an instant, the machine that had flipped from front to back brushed right past Hana and streaked away.
"……"
Hana stood dumbfounded, staring at the back of the bike shot off in the exact opposite direction. And then Hikari's voice reached her ears once more.
[Not yet!]
Grrrrmbll.
The straight road was no longer a plain. Like stairs to heaven rising toward the sky. On the unfamiliar road with its sudden, vicious incline, the balance of Nanami's bike was collapsing.
"Khh — an incline, of all things—"
Nanami, thrown into confusion by a perception rewritten before her eyes. Black barriers sprang up across her path, seizing their moment — but even in the midst of the chaos, she gripped the throttle and threaded past them with practiced skill.
[Now, Hana!! Slow her down!!]
"AHAHA!"
Sato Hana found her confidence again. Because this was a track of a shape she knew all too well.
Of course it was. She had rehearsed running toward the sky in her head, countless times, ever since the day her legs had stopped moving.
A single streak of meteor chased down the bike that had lost its balance on the strange road. Spread before the starlight's path was a track climbing straight into the sky. The yellow meteor that had once fallen so very low reclaimed its light and pressed on toward where it had always belonged.
SCREEEECH!
"Kyaaah?! N-no!! Please!! Don't stop the bike!!!"
"Hallway tag is over now, lady!"
The yellow starlight bursting from Hana's hand slowly began to take hold of the bike's rear wheel.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Skrk!
"Now, Hikari-chan!!"
[Great work, Hana!]
At the end of a chase that had seemed endless, the bike — its speed finally strangled — was swallowed whole by the black barrier. A prison of perfect illusion. There, with her perception completely twisted, Nanami broke down entirely.
CRASH-clatter-!
The bike tumbled down in a sorry, sprawling heap.
"Hk?! Is that lady even alive?"
[A bloomed 2-star won't die from something like that.]
"Phew, what a relief. If she died, she couldn't get her spank-spank! You have to take your punishment!"
[……]
When the barrier lifted, what remained was the wreckage of a crushed, tumbled bike — and Nanami sprawled on the road, gasping for breath. Through the visor of her helmet, flipped open at some point, she was muttering, half-conscious.
"The bike... if it stops... Mom will... me..."
"……"
At the sight of her, Hana faltered for a moment. Then she walked over and began to stroke Nanami's head — a kind hand gently soothing the cat-eared helmet the girl wore.
[...Hana, you're so kind.]
"Hngh — why won't this thing come off?"
[Huh?]
GRNK!
As she shoved the visor — jammed by the crumpled frame — firmly shut, the sound of Nanami's muttering was cut off entirely.
"Mom told me — after you do something bad, making excuses like 'I'm like this because of what I went through' is the worst thing you can do!"
[...I see.]
Trapped inside the black barrier, Kohane had been working her mecha, hunting for a way out of this place.
[Nyufufufuh! Super Cool Mecha No. 1 is an all-purpose mecha, fully equipped to handle even emergency situations such as this!]
CLUNK!
Psssshhh―
[Literally — super cool!]
"Oh yeah? Looks crap-tastic to me."
[Nyuh?!]
Kohane hastily checked her night-vision feed and discovered a girl standing directly in front of her mecha.
The girl wore an old-fashioned sailor uniform. A green scarf was slung over her shoulder.
The girl in green. She was quietly regarding the mecha from within the darkness.
[W-well, naturally, lowly civilians can't tell the difference.]
Even as she spoke, Kohane felt her heart hammering with tension. Because of the green gleam burning in the girl's eyes — because those blazing eyes seemed to be staring straight through the armor, directly at her inside the mecha.
"If the hands of a lowly civilian hammer that junk heap of yours back into shape, I'd say you and I end up thinking pretty alike."
[You DARE say you'll smash Super Cool Mecha No. 1 — built by me together with Big Bro— ahem, my assistant?!]
VMMMM―
A threatening red glow. The crimson mono-eye lit up in the darkness, and every drive unit of the mecha came online. The machine blazed bright. Clunk. Clunk. Psssshhh――
[Nyufufufu... I had intended to skip today's performance demonstration and offer only a march in honor of the Magical Girl of [Beginning]...]
VEEEEEN!
[But I do look forward to showing a magical girl precisely what astonishing capabilities I possess!]
"That [Beginning] is my boss, you tin can."
[Nonsense!!]
KWAAAANG!
The mecha charged, threatening, straight at Ichika.