Part 16
Accelerator had landed at the entrance to the subway tunnel.
Just a few minutes before, his feet hadn't been touching the ground. He had created four whirlwinds on his back and been using their power to fly with tremendous speed.
However, he couldn't use that power inside the tunnel because of its strong electromagnetic interference.
He had only lost a few minutes, but that had to be a pretty major loss given the speed of the powered suit he was after.
(He has to exit the tunnel somewhere, but there are too many options. A lot of subway lines use this tunnel, so he could move to almost any part of the city through there.)
Accelerator could "fly" along the shortest course ignoring speed and road layout, so he had the option of randomly going to each of the possible exits, but that would eat up his battery. His power would be his greatest trump card when it came down to rescuing Fremea Seivelun. He couldn't deny that using it all up on the problem currently before his eyes could lead to worsening the situation down the road.
He thought for a bit and then pulled out his cell phone.
He called Misaka Worst.
"How's that brat doing?"
"Misaka supposes that is the first thing her father would ask, isn't it? We've made it back to the apartment. We're being questioned by Yomikawa, the landlady."
Yomikawa was part of Anti-Skill and she was the type of person that would act beyond what the manual said. She may have caught a glimpse of the problem on her own despite the darkness attempting to control the information.
"Have you seen any sign of the Freshmen?"
"Two groups of four. But they didn't feel like the main force. They were most likely just lookouts. Perhaps they were planning on abducting their targets for some psychological warfare in case you worked a little too hard and got in the way of their plan. But Misaka already took them out."
"Set up sensors and cameras around the area and prepare a number of escape routes, but don't let on that anything's wrong. If you try to move to a hideout unprepared, they'll target you en route and you can't let Yomikawa catch on. If those two groups are still alive, threaten them with a knife. Make sure they keep reporting that nothing's wrong at their designated intervals."
"Is that all? Misaka has already done all that. She tied them up in a sheltered area with their radios and remote traps next to their mouths. Misaka may not look it, but she's the type who finishes her summer homework early."
Accelerator ignored her joke.
"…While somehow not letting Yomikawa or the others pick up on what's going on, I need you to get all the information you can on the third shared subway tunnel. The powered suit that abducted that brat called Fremea Seivelun is running through there and I want to know what exit he's going to come out of."
"Somehow, huh? How far can Misaka go? Is punching them out an option?"
"…"
"Hey, don't get all silent on Misaka. Fine, fine, Misaka gets it. She'll hide it with peaceful means." Misaka Worst's voice was devoid of tension and it made one imagine that she had a smile in her eyes. "But is which exit he's going to come out of really enough? You know full well that the darkness we're from is merciless. It's possible he'll give it all a bloody end while he's still in the tunnel."
"No one can deal with 100% of the possibilities. In fact, the odds I would fail if I just blindly charged into the tunnel are quite high. Also, a different powered suit on a bike went into the tunnel after I got there. If it's who I think it is, the bastard won't give him a chance to touch Fremea."
"Oh, you're relying on someone else? How rare." Misaka Worst's words were filled with sarcasm. "But then wouldn't it be faster to directly ask the guy in the tunnel what's going on?"
"Do you really think we exchanged numbers?"
"Don't we just have to get his number some other way then?"
"Don't focus on that. It's possible the signal won't reach him in the tunnel. It's better to have multiple sources of information."
"You're free to order Misaka around, but surely you'll be working on gathering information too, right?"
The strained atmosphere continued until he hung up.
Fighting wasn't simply rampaging around.
Getting a grasp of the state of things was part of the fight.
Part 17
As Silver Cross Alpha headed into the depths of the tunnel's darkness while wearing the powered suit with the armadillo-like armor, he heard an explosion.
He chuckled and exited to the surface through one of the exits for construction workers instead of one of the subway stations.
Obviously, his suit had been a military secret. There were measures to take once it was severely damaged and about to fall into the hands of the enemy. The important bits of machinery and circuits were dissolved with a strong acid and then the suit was detonated by igniting its fuel.
A screen in the armadillo suit displayed the level of damage to the four-legged suit.
It wasn't to the extent of that large bike with its jet engine and rocket boosters, but Silver Cross's four-legged suit didn't use normal gasoline. And its fuel had been completely ignited.
The suit most likely no longer had its original form.
It wouldn't have very many properly functioning circuits left and the icons for ways to dispose of them to keep them from being captured were lined up on his screen.
(It's over.)
Silver Cross's genuine feelings leaked out.
(The only question is whether Hamazura Shiage died along with Fremea Seivelun or not. Even if they both died, Accelerator can still easily be made a big enough threat to require immediate action. If we just stir up Mugino or Kinuhata of Item and have them contact Accelerator, it should work.)
Silver Cross started to open a communications line connected to Kuroyoru Umidori in order to report what had happened.
Before he could, he froze.
He had seen something.
He saw it remotely through one of the camera lenses on the four-legged powered suit that wasn't functioning properly anymore.
A figure was standing in the blaze.
That figure was holding a small girl in his arms.
"Hamazura Shiage…!!"
Silver Cross hadn't realized something.
Hamazura had stood on the Dragon Rider bike that had been caught between the four-legged suit's broken back right leg and the ground. He then used all his strength to lift up the broken leg a few centimeters and had partly surfed on the bike as it separated from the four-legged suit.
But Silver Cross couldn't believe it.
(How? How did he survive? And that's Fremea Seivelun. Unlike Hamazura, she didn't have the benefit of any armor!!)
He wanted to get more details on the figure standing in the flames and the four-legged suit wasn't any help, so he directly connected his armadillo-like suit with a cable to the subway's security network so he could use the security cameras.
That backfired on him.
"You're there, aren't you?"
A voice stabbed into him.
A gaze turned in his direction.
The image on the monitor and the voice coming from the speakers accurately pierced straight through Silver Cross.
(Did he compute it from the communications equipment in both the powered suits? No, that isn't it. This is…!!)
A cable was stretching from Hamazura's arm as he stared directly at the lens of the security camera Silver Cross was using.
He had stood in front of the security camera for show and spread out his electronic "net" and then waited for Silver Cross to make his move.
Of course, this was beyond the level of a mere delinquent.
But Silver Cross knew that the missing knowledge and skills would be forcibly reinforced giving the boy the proper level of experience.
He brought his hand to the spinal area of the armadillo.
(…He's getting mind support from the powered suit just like me!!)
It was all temporary. Once he left the powered suit, he would lose it all. But as long as he continued to wear the suit, that knowledge and those skills were his to use as he pleased.
The figure in the flames moved.
Another person appeared who must have entered the tunnel either through a subway station or through a construction entrance like the one Silver Cross had exited through. It wasn't Accelerator. It appeared to be the delinquent that had been used to track down Hamazura and Fremea when they were hiding in the private salon.
Hamazura handed Fremea to the boy.
She was alive and, if she was handed over, Silver Cross and Kuroyoru's plan would end a failure.
But he didn't have time to worry about that.
He had something else to think about that took priority.
He had to survive.
When had he ended up in a situation where he had to seriously consider that?
"…I'm sure I don't have to tell you what I'm going to do."
With those words, the security camera was destroyed and the image was replaced with static.
At the same time, the voice transmission cut off.
In that instant, the positions of chased and chaser were reversed.
Part 18
Takitsubo Rikou, a girl wearing a pink jersey, was standing blankly in front of a roadside vending machine.
She wasn't just holding a normal drink can in her hand. She had the authorized iced tea of a famous tea shop. At least it claimed to be. It had a lot of milk, sugar, and honey put in by default, so the flavor had been lost. Its sweetness was on the level of strawberry milk.
(…My feet hurt. I'm tired of walking.)
Takitsubo was there for a very simple reason.
The three members of Item were still on the Hamazura Search that they had made the humiliating bunny bet on, but, unlike Mugino and Kinuhata, Takitsubo had no real basis with which to search for Hamazura. And since she had the ability to sense others' AIM diffusion fields, she gave her "intuition" a lot more importance than she herself thought.
To fully use her power, she had to use the Body Crystal powder that had powerful side effects, but she could still vaguely sense the weak power that espers subconsciously emitted even without it. However, since it was just a vague sense, she couldn't tell what kind of power it was, who was using it, or where they were. It really wasn't that useful.
As such, the "invisible power" that was backing her up, the thing that her actions were based on in the end, was really just vague and uncertain "intuition".
Since she had managed to make it through Academy City's darkness safely with that intuition, it might have been something worth researching.
"Nn…"
Takitsubo looked vacantly up into the air.
(A signal is coming from the north east…That way, I think.)
Then her cell phone started ringing.
While she walked along the street, she took her phone out of her pocket with her small hand.
It was from Kinuhata Saiai.
"Yahoh. Have you super found Hamazura yet?"
"Nnn."
"Mugino ran into a problem with controlling the security company and getting video data got super hard for her, so I guess I'm going to be super first."
"Kinuhata, do you know where Hamazura is?"
"Well, yeah." The voice coming from the phone dropped a tone. "But I spotted someone super annoying nearby."
Part 19
Incidentally, Silver Cross Alpha's face had been burned as a punishment in the past.
He had experienced firsthand how useless the nonsense about what is inside a person being important was.
Ever since it had happened, he had spent his life attempting to regain his face. As he completed various "jobs", various bits of Academy City technology had been used to repair his face bit by bit as if it were a lump of clay having details added. It was like a horrible game of fukuwarai[3].
But he realized something when he had finally regained his former graceful face.
Even though so much money and technology had been used to perfectly bring back his face, the disgrace he felt when his face had been burnt away continued to warp his looks into something unsightly.
Consequently, Silver Cross fundamentally had no sense of aesthetics towards his own body.
His habit of switching between numerous powered suits was largely due to the fact that he had arranged his mind so he held no attachment to his outer appearance, his features, or his form.
To control a four-legged powered suit, he had to become a four-legged animal.
To control an eight-legged powered suit, he had to become an eight-legged animal.
Even if some of the controls were left to a program leaving simplified controls for him to use, in the end, that was what was required to truly control a powered suit. In fact, getting used to everything going smoothly due to the program made the problem worse.
Obviously, the behavior required to control an eight-legged form with a two-legged form were of no use when walking with your own two legs. If he got used to the method for eight-legged walking, he would forget how to walk with two legs and his commands would be thrown into confusion.
And that's just talking about the legs.
It should be clear how severe the problem would be once it spread to the entire body.
What is the true form of my body? How do I move it?
Everyone knew those things and had no problem with the answers and Silver Cross could analyze those things in his mind each time. He overcame the reason that power suits beyond the shape of a human hadn't become mass produced.
That man who had abandoned his own body had a sudden thought.
He was watching the man who stood up amid the burning flames holding Fremea Seivelun.
He was looking at that scene and the spot the man stood in.
He thought that he might not ever be able to stand in a place like that no matter what model of powered suit he used.
Chasing him was simple.
Hamazura had lost the Dragon Rider bike, but it was still much easier to move in the powered suit than with nothing. He was running through the subway tunnel. He couldn't avoid the loss in stamina caused by moving his own limbs, but he was glad that he could move faster than the speed limit on those two legs.
Searching for him was simple.
He had used the powered suit's data to spread out an electronic "net" and Silver Cross had gotten caught in it. He wasn't far away. With his machine-assisted legs, Hamazura could catch up to him very soon.
Reading his movements was simple.
Silver Cross had two options at that point.
First, he could run away as quickly as he could, meet up with his comrades, and change into a more powerful suit. But he wouldn't choose that. The biggest weak point of a powered suit was in the instant of changing from one to another. Since he didn't know when Hamazura would catch up to him, Hamazura doubted he would make contact with one of his mobile "bases".
Therefore, Silver Cross would choose the other option.
He would give up on changing to a better suit and attempt to capture Fremea Seivelun as quickly as he could using his current armadillo-like suit. It was a self-evident truth that Fremea's life could be used to keep Hamazura and Accelerator in check. And, using the security camera, Silver Cross had seen Hamazura in the powered suit hand Fremea over to Hanzou who didn't have a suit. He also knew that Hamazura had split up from Hanzou and Fremea in order to chase after Silver Cross who was far away.
Silver Cross was sure to think this was his last chance.
If he could sneak past Hamazura, attack the defenseless Hanzou, and abduct Fremea, he could still turn the situation around.
Because of this, getting a surprise attack on him was simple.
Silver Cross was certain to use the tunnel again in order to get Fremea back as quickly as possible. And since he wanted to sneak past Hamazura, he wouldn't use the shortest path.
He needed a path that was a detour but still allowed him to get Fremea back as quickly as possible.
He would be second.
Once Hamazura had worked all that out, he just had to wait for Silver Cross to arrive in his armadillo-like suit.
With a crash, Hamazura jumped from cover and struck the back of the armadillo with a flying kick.
The armadillo was knocked to the ground and bounced five or six times. The model finally stopped when it struck the gently curving wall and then slowly stood up.
He had succeeded in his surprise attack, but Hamazura still felt impatient.
(…I used the best timing and hit him with all my weight when he was off guard and he can still move. He really is tough.)
The armadillo had unhesitatingly jumped out of the four-legged suit that was running at over 500 kph and it still kept its normal specs. It must have been guaranteed to protect the life of its controller. It didn't seem like it was just that its armor was tough. It may have also had some kind of electronic control mechanism that let it escape the shock.
Hamazura was wearing the control suit for Dragon Rider, a crystallization of "official" technology that had originally been created as a large Anti-Skill patrol bike.
Silver Cross was wearing a part of his collection that was a crystallization of the technology of the dark side of the city.
They each had to defeat the other, and they stared each other down.
The control suit and the armadillo suit did not exchange words.
The first step was taken before they could.
Their fists crossed.
A loud creaking noise rang out.
It wasn't the sound of a flesh-and-blood body being hit. But it wasn't simply the sound of the powered suits' armor striking each other.
Hamazura's right fist had parried Silver Cross's fist.
He had struck Silver Cross's lower arm from the outside to forcibly alter the trajectory of his fist.
Hamazura threw a punch with his left fist in response.
It was an uppercut.
The armadillo purposefully moved its shoulder towards the fist in order to keep the damage as low as possible.
Of course, these weren't Hamazura Shiage's techniques.
Nor were they Silver Cross's.
The computers inside the powered suits were searching for knowledge and skills and reinforcing the two of them. They were using that to its fullest in this exchange of punches that were stronger than a standard shotgun. They were predicting their opponent's moves, calculating the trajectories of their fists, parrying, and then beginning their own attack. And this process was being carried out at a speed of three times a second.
The motors and chemical springs were correcting their fists' momentum vectors to create destructive forces on the level of a gun.
As Silver Cross was controlling a weapon in the shape of a human instead of a machine that reinforced human actions, he could most likely produce the most destructive force.
The noises of strong blows and sparks flying continued on and on.
(…Just plowing our tough armor into each other isn't going to do anything. Both these suits were created to be indestructible. A frontal attack is just a waste of time.)
Hamazura was thinking while he controlled the suit that was amplifying his fist to the point that it could plow right through a car door.
(But these aren't tanks or armored cars. They're just powered suits that match the movements of the body within and amplify the momentum. That's a weakness I can use to stop his movements.)
In other words, he had to stop the soft human inside not the tough powered suit on the outside.
Hamazura didn't bother to avoid the armadillo suit's fists while it was focusing on his face most likely in an attempt to destroy the sensors there. Hamazura restrained Silver Cross's arm by wrapping his two arms around it.
The arm of a powered suit was different from the arm of a mere machine. A human arm was inside the powered suit arm.
That meant if one used his weight to break the arm at the shoulder and elbow, the human arm within would break, too.
Of course, Hamazura wasn't versed in joint locks.
He didn't know how to break someone's joint when they were still standing and on their guard.
It was all due to the machine's reinforcement.
It felt like pushing a rail car and looking down the rail.
His limbs moved quickly and he broke his opponent's arm more calmly than he normally would have been in that situation.
"Gaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!"
"Judo and wrestling sure are scary, huh? I wouldn't want to deal with them in a street fight with no referee!!"
A powered suit was made up of machines and could alter the degree of freedom its joints had. It may not even break if it was bent completely backwards.
But the human arm inside was different.
And since the powered suit operated by matching the movements of the human, an injury to the human greatly decreased the types of orders that could be given to it.
(I don't need to break both of his arms and both of his legs. If I can just break one leg, he won't be able to move anymore…!!)
That was when he heard an odd noise.
The right arm of the armadillo suit that Hamazura had supposedly broken began to shake unnaturally.
It was as if it was changing modes of some kind.
"Don't underestimate meeeeeeeeee!"
"!?"
Silver Cross used the power of his left hand to tear off the portion below the elbow of the broken right arm that Hamazura was still grabbing.
Hamazura lost his balance and Silver Cross delivered a strong kick to his gut.
Hamazura's back struck the concrete wall and thin cracks raced along the wall.
"Gah!?"
Then came a second hit.
And a third.
"…!!!!!!"
Even while wearing a powered suit, it was enough to knock the wind out of him. As he was struggling to breathe, he let go of the armadillo suit's right arm.
That wasn't normal.
Of course, an attack like that would damage Hamazura, but the pain of having one's arm ripped off should have been greater. It wouldn't have been surprising if someone bit their tongue in shock when it happened.
Hamazura looked straight ahead with his dim vision and saw something unusual regarding the armadillo suit.
Its armor was crumbling away as if it were mud.
"…You were wrong if you thought you could stop a powered suit by breaking its 'contents'."
Some kind of viscous black oil and something like a belt-shaped piece of rubber stretched out and began wrapping around the arm that had fallen to the ground. Then the supposedly severed arm was forcibly reattached from the outside. It looked more like a black arm with a captivating unevenness to it than it did armor.
(…It's just like a crab's shell. He used the shell to connect the torn off arm…!)
As the armor left his face, Silver Cross's voice became clearer.
His voice was as beautiful as a bell.
"Once a powered suit goes past a certain point, it essentially becomes the same as a cyborg. It's just the difference between being reinforced from without or from within."
With a water-like sound, Silver Cross's "shell" transformed. Inside was a young man with long hair and a graceful face. The "shell" changed so that it looked like he was wearing a dirty cape.
He didn't look at all like the robot surrounded by thick armor that had been there before.
Half of Silver Cross's body was covered in the artificial muscles that forcibly reinforced him from without, but they looked like a half complete design.
The writhing fibers of the chemical springs were directly visible.
On that somehow captivating unevenness, the model name, Emergency, was displayed in red letters.
"Therefore, destroying the body inside is pointless. It can still be reinforced by the shell. If you destroy the bones and muscles of my arms and legs, destroy my blood vessels so I lose blood, or even damage or stop my internal organs, the suit can bypass all of that and allow me to continue to fight. Even…"
A noise that sounded like creaking gears could be heard and a number of long and thin but warped arms with pointed ends shot out of the part of his right side of his body that was covered by the cape.
"My brain."
A chill ran down Hamazura's spine.
His knowledge and skills were being supplemented by the computer.
"…This power was supposed to be for using against 'them', so of course it isn't going to be something normal"
Hamazura didn't know how much damage the suit could bypass, but the fight had clearly gone beyond the point of a battle between two flesh-and-blood humans. The battle could no longer be settled by putting a bullet between his opponent's eyes.
"Realize that and then we can enjoy this. I'll show you just how repulsive it is to go beyond being human."
In actuality, Silver Cross's tactic had begun before he had changed the suit's silhouette, before the armadillo-like suit's right arm had been torn off, and even before the fistfight on the level of shotgun blasts had begun.
It had started the instant he had been hit by the surprise flying kick.
It came down to a difference in experience. Silver Cross Alpha had been using all sorts of powered suits for a long period of time, so he knew what was important in a powered suit battle and he knew what to do to defeat an enemy when they showed up.
He knew the most important thing.
It wasn't the armor or exterior joints and it wasn't the battery or the motors either. There was something that had to be grasped first before those surface things.
(The reinforcing and supplementing of knowledge and skills by the computer.)
No matter how strong the punch, it was meaningless if it didn't hit. No matter how solid the armor, it was meaningless if an attack could get through a gap.
(Neither of us are experts in battle or in martial arts. The readjusted thoughts calculate the most effective attack pattern based on your level of experience. …So if you can figure out what the reinforcement script is, you can pull of a cross counter with 100% accuracy.)
For that reason, Silver Cross had put the camera mode to high speed and started analyzing from the second the battle began. He was fighting Hamazura and having the computer work at the same time.
And he had gotten an answer.
The infinite possibilities had been narrowed down to finite options.
Obviously, Hamazura Shiage had an almost infinite number of attack patterns he could freely use. But he only had five patterns for a first move. Silver Cross was preemptively crushing the explosively spreading possibilities that were held in 0.1 seconds. If he created a situation where he could pull off a cross counter for every single first move, his victory would be assured. That was why he had changed his suit's silhouette. The seven warped arms with pointed ends were prepared to pierce through a gap in Hamazura's armor at the armpit and into his lungs and heart and to also destroy the computer on his back. The arms were prepared to do this for every move Hamazura could take.
Hamazura did not realize this.
That was why he took the last step forward to attack Silver Cross.
He had no idea that act would lead to his chest being pierced.
(…So he's going for the barrier of pursuing destructive power.)
Hamazura was in a cage called possibility.
His future was a dead end.
(Come face your prepared death, Level 0!!)
A dull noise rang out.
It was the dull noise of a human body being destroyed through the gaps in the joints of a powered suit.
In that instant, the seven pointed arms had accurately captured all five possible first moves. They were to intercept every single one of Hamazura's possible actions, pierce his heart, and destroy the computer controlling his powered suit so it couldn't bypass his heart.
And yet Hamazura slipped past them.
The seven arms missed.
Hamazura sent his fist at Silver Cross Alpha with tremendous force in an attack that wasn't any of the preset five first moves.
(Wha—?)
Silver Cross's breath caught, but then he realized what had happened.
(He turned off the computer reinforcement at the last second to go beyond its breadth of options.)
"…!?"
He immediately swung the seven arms in, but it was too late.
Those weapons had been deployed so that they could apply their maximum destruction within the range he had set. They weren't going to intercept Hamazura successfully now that he had left that range.
The pointed ends lightly tore at Hamazura's suit.
But that was all they did.
They didn't stop him from moving and the fist that could plow straight through a car door slammed into Silver Cross.
Hamazura rotated the strike to the side and hit Silver Cross's torso.
It hit the battery and the computer.
A grating noise was heard and all of Silver Cross's movable parts stopped. His state-of-the-art weapon had become nothing more than expensive shackles.
"…So you…" Silver Cross couldn't move his arms and legs and he was stuck bent over forward. He could only just barely move his mouth. "…read that I was reading your attack pattern…"
"What the hell are you talking about?" spat out Hamazura in response. He still truly didn't know what Silver Cross had been trying to do. "I just realized that this was something I had to do on my own."
Part 20
Silver Cross Alpha had been defeated.
He seemed to still be conscious, but his control computer had been destroyed, so all of his joints had frozen up and he couldn't even take off the suit himself. He was trapped inside the partially collapsed suit.
Hamazura checked to make sure of that and then leaned his back up against the tunnel wall. He gave a sigh of relief.
The last half hour had been intense.
A horrible sweat caused by the danger he had been in was still coming from his entire body.
"Hamazura!!" Hanzou came running over from farther down the dark tunnel. "Are you okay?"
"Somehow or other…" As he spoke, Hamazura opened and closed the powered suit's hands. "But this suit is shot. It can't amplify the momentum of my actions anymore and its thought reinforcement is based on having that power. If I tried to follow what it told me to do, I would just end up destroying my bones. …It's really just a riding suit now."
He was just glad that it hadn't frozen up like Silver Cross's suit had. And it was still tougher than normal clothes even if it couldn't amplify the momentum of his actions.
He took off the helmet and breathed the air directly before asking a question.
"Where's Fremea?"
"Nearby. It seems she mistook you for a transforming superhero."
"Hey, if I could get away with anything just by having my face hidden, I'd give it a try."
They heard a creaking noise and turned their eyes towards the darkness.
Deep in the dark subway tunnel, they heard a slight noise. It wasn't a natural noise. It sounded something like the creaking of a thick spring.
Hamazura put his helmet back on and switched it to night vision mode. He stopped breathing once he did.
"…Oh, fuck…"
"What is it, Hamazura? What can you see?"
Masses of metal.
Crawling legs.
Cold lenses.
"Powered suits."
"Didn't you just defeat the powered suit guy!?"
"This isn't just two or three. There are more than ten of the damn things. It wasn't just Silver Cross!!"
"So that's it…" muttered Silver Cross while he was still frozen in place inside the broken suit. His voice was tinged with self derision. "That girl is sending my collection out of my hangar without my permission."
Looking at the threat, Hamazura took a step back and Hanzou moved even further back pushed by an imagined fear of what he couldn't see. Then the two started running. The relief and sense of release from before was gone.
"Let's meet up with Fremea! You said she was nearby, right!?"
"I left her with Kuruwa. She has a hideout nearby, so let's head there! But we can't deal with a bunch of powered suits like that. What are we going to do, Hamazura!?"
"That should be obvious…"
He couldn't use his suit anymore.
The enemy kept sending in more and more forces making their strength seem infinite.
The end was nowhere in sight.
How far did they have to run? Could they continue to run? Was running even the right thing to do?
Hamazura was being chased again, but he stared ahead and gave his answer.
"We have to forestall them in order to save Fremea!!"